A Is for Anguish
by rentheadperson525600
Summary: How Ezra became part of the A team and what his real motivation is. A couple of things to note: First, I AM NOT caught up with PLL and only found this spoiler out by accident, so what I write may not make sense with what's happening now. Second, I do write some scenes from the show into this story. It goes without saying that I DO NOT own that dialogue or those parts of the story.
1. A Deal with the Devil

A Is for Anguish

Chapter 1  
_A Deal with the Devil_

How had my life come to this? Less than a year ago, I had been a recent college graduate about to start my first job teaching high school English. Now? I was jobless and back living with my judgmental high society parents, trying to get a new job after having turned down a job as an assistant dean at a college in Louisiana and getting fired because the dean of the college I was teaching at wasn't pleased with my decision. Big surprise, not one callback from the twenty-plus resumes I'd sent out. And to add to the list of things wrong with my life at the moment, I was six hours away from the woman I loved. I didn't regret any of it, but I still wasn't thrilled with the current situation, obviously. But honestly, I almost didn't want to get a call from any of the schools I'd applied to. How was I supposed to explain the rather unusual circumstances behind my current predicament?

Aria and I had gone through the story over and over again, just in case it came up. I had taken the job at Hollis so I could have more time to focus on my writing. Aria's father also taught there and she had started taking an extracurricular pottery class on campus. Aria and I had run into each other several times while she was on her way to her pottery class or to visit her father on campus. Five minute chats in the courtyard had turned into coffee dates, which had turned into dinners, which had turned into a relationship. It wasn't something either of us planned, and it wasn't something that happened while I was still her teacher. She was at the legal age of consent and I wasn't all that much older than her, so while it was certainly unconventional, it was not illegal. However, when Aria's father found out about us, he was less than enthusiastic about his daughter dating a former teacher, so he pulled some strings and recommended me for the assistant dean position at Hollis's satellite school in New Orleans. I had considered taking it, but decided against it because I didn't want to leave my friends and my girlfriend. After I had turned down the position, the dean at Hollis was not pleased and gave me notice the same week that the class I was teaching would no longer be offered and there was not another position available for me. That seemed plausible. Hell, I almost believed it myself. And really, the only part that wasn't true was when our romance had started.

I glanced at the time on my computer. 9:30 a.m. It was Saturday, but there was still a chance that Aria might be awake already. I decided to try her.

"Hey," she said, answering on the fourth ring. She sounded groggy, like she'd just woken up.

"Hey. Did I wake you up?" It was so good to hear her voice.

"Yes, you did, but I needed to get up. I have plans with Emily before the dance tonight."

She hadn't mentioned a dance to me in our conversations, but that didn't surprise me. She probably didn't want either of us thinking about the fact that she would be going alone. Still, my curiosity was piqued. And I just wanted to hear her talk. It didn't matter what it was about.

"What dance?" I asked.

"I thought I told you," she said, sounding more awake now. "There's a masquerade ball for the Rosewood Juniors Society tonight."

"Sounds like fun. Wish I could take you."

"Me too. But, you know, if wishes were horses…"

"Yeah, I know. I miss you."

"I miss you too," she sighed. "I'll send pictures from the dance. So, any luck with the job hunt?"

"Nothing yet," I said, my frustration coming through more than I wanted it to. "Getting fired after turning down a promotion isn't exactly a stellar work history."

"I know you'll find something. I hope you're at least finding some time to write while you're there."

"A little, but it's hard to write when my muse is six hours away from me," I teased.

Aria giggled. I loved the way her eyes lit up when she laughed. I wished more than anything that I could be there to see it.

I heard my mother open the door to the patio. She was about as supportive of my relationship with Aria as Byron was. Less, if that was possible. Looked like my time with Aria was up for now.

"I'm sorry, but I have to go," I grumbled. "I'll talk to you soon. Please do send pictures."

"Okay," she sighed. "I will. Hey, Ezra?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

My three favorite words to hear from her. But not while so much distance was separating us. I pursed my lips, trying to keep back a sob. Neither Aria nor my mother needed to hear that.

"I love you too," I choked out, and then hung up, turning to face my mother. "Did you need something, mom?"

"I heard you on the phone," my mother said, judgmental as ever. "Ezra, I thought we talked about that girl. She's ruined your life. It's for the best that you're here now. You need to get her out of your life."

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "_That girl_ has a name, mom. And you talked. I listened. But your opinion of someone you've never even met is not going to change my feelings for her, or stop me from trying to make this work out between us. I love her."

She opened her mouth to say something, but then shut it again and just turned and walked back inside.

My computer pinged, indicating a new email. I hit the spacebar to wake it up.

The email was from a blocked sender. I almost deleted it without even opening it, but then I saw the subject line:

**Want to get back to her? Here's how.**

It couldn't be about Aria, could it? I mean, who could know about that? Her friends knew, but they wouldn't have a solution to my predicament. And they didn't have this email address, anyway. Even so, I was intrigued enough to open it.

_$50,000 for one small job in Rosewood. Go to the masquerade ball tonight. Instructions for the job and how to collect the payment will be in the potted palm tree in the courtyard. And you'll still have time to dance with Aria. It's an opportunity to die for…  
-A_

A? Who the hell was A? And how did this person know how desperately I wanted to go back to Rosewood and dance with Aria at this stupid masquerade ball? But $50,000 to do one thing sounded shady at best, illegal at worst. An opportunity to die for? I was leaning towards illegal.

But…$50,000 was enough to allow me to go back to Rosewood and be with Aria again while I was looking for jobs. I could do one shady deed for that, couldn't I?

No. As hard as it was to be away from her, I had standards. Didn't I? Ah, screw that. I'd thrown standards out the window when I'd started having a relationship with a sixteen year old high school student. And not just a student in the same high school. A student in one of my classes.

Wait…Aria. A memory stirred. From when she and I had first started our relationship. She'd left her phone at my place and it had buzzed. Thinking it was an emergency, I'd checked it to see if it was her parents. Instead it was a text taunting Aria about being with me. The text had been from a blocked number and it was also signed from A. When I had asked Aria about it, I was sure she had told someone about us. She'd tried to tell me that she hadn't, but it took me a while to believe her. Because how else could someone know? And, as I had told her, if A knew, then B and C and everyone else probably did too. At least by my logic. When I was finally willing to listen to her, all Aria had been willing to tell me was that she hadn't said anything to anyone about us and that A was someone who was messing with her. I'd asked who would want to do such a thing, but all she would say was that it was complicated.

What if it was the same person now? The person who somehow knew everything about everyone. Well, if it was, this certainly wasn't a smart thing to do. This person couldn't possibly be this generous. I'd get sucked into this person's game and web of deceit.

But then I thought of Aria again. And the last line of the email. An opportunity to die for. What if this person planned to do something to hurt Aria or her friends? And what if, by being there and pretending to take this "job," I could prevent it? If I didn't go and something did happen, I wouldn't find out until it was too late. And then I would never be able to forgive myself for not at least trying to help her. I had to go.

I went back into the house and packed up my bag. I'd only brought one with me, thinking that running out of clothes might give me an excuse to go back to Rosewood for a day or a weekend. I also grabbed a gold sequined mask out of the back of my closet. Being from a wealthy family, I'd gone to my share of charity functions, including masquerade balls. For the first time in my life, I was glad I'd kept that hideous mask. Meant I wouldn't have to go out and buy one at the last minute.

I was able to slip out the door and into my car without being noticed. I glanced at the clock. Noon. If I only made stops for gas and grabbed a quick lunch before leaving town, I'd get there with a couple of hours to get ready before the ball. Maybe I could surprise Aria by taking her to dinner first. Nah, she was probably going to be with her friends before the dance. I'd just see her there.

About six hours later, I found myself pulling into the parking lot of the community center where the ball was being held. I had decided to get there before everyone else to look for whatever it was that A had left for me. The less people around, the easier it would be to find it. Besides, I had a feeling that whatever I was doing for A, it was not to be advertised.

I went to the courtyard, where there was a small maze of mirrors. And there was one potted palm in the center. I walked up and looked inside the pot. Sure enough, there was an envelope addressed to me. I didn't recognize the handwriting. I opened the envelope and there was a typewritten note accompanied by the key to a storage unit.

_Your payment and instructions for the job are in the storage unit. Go alone and tell no one.  
-A_

This was sounding shadier and shadier by the minute. But something told me that there was no turning back now and that A's instructions had to be followed to the letter. So it looked like I was on a scavenger hunt. Next stop: storage unit.

Getting there only took about ten minutes. I found the storage unit with ease and opened the door. It was empty except for a clear plastic bag in the middle of the floor filled with wads of $100 bills. I didn't need to count it. I was sure there would be exactly fifty grand in there, as promised. On top of the bag was another typewritten note.

_Get to Noel Kahn's cabin by midnight. There will be a package there for you to transport, along with instructions on where to transport it. Fail to do so, and not only will you find this money gone by morning, but something much more valuable to you will be missing as well. Now hurry up and get back to the ball. Your lady awaits…  
-A_

So I was right. There was no backing out now. This package was already as good as transported and had been from the moment I'd opened that email. Now, I had no choice. I could read between the lines. Something much more valuable could only mean one thing. If I didn't transport that package, something would happen to Aria. If it meant keeping her out of harm's way, I would do anything, no matter how unsavory. I couldn't survive losing her.

Although I was fairly certain that A would keep up his or her end of the bargain if I kept mine, I wasn't about to take any chances with that money. I grabbed the bag and the note and booked it out of that storage unit. I headed back to my apartment to shower and change.

When I got to the apartment, it didn't quite look how I'd left it. An old photo album was out on the coffee table and four cups and my teapot were in the dish drainer. Aria had probably brought her friends over here. I had left her with the key to show the apartment so I could find someone to sublet to. Well, at least she'd cleaned up after herself. And I was sure that there was a good reason why they were here as opposed to one of their houses. Something told me that if A had me doing something tonight, then the girls were probably in over their heads and needed somewhere quiet to process everything.

I sighed and headed to take a shower. I stayed under the hot water much longer than I should have, but no amount of soap could wash away the feeling that this was all very wrong. I shouldn't be here. I should never have opened that damn email. I was already in over my head and I hadn't even done anything yet other than go on a scavenger hunt and collect a bag full of money.

But then I remembered why I was here. I was here for the woman I loved, because a nagging feeling told me that she needed me here and not just because she missed me. I wished she would confide in me and tell me about this A. I was sure that A hadn't stopped tormenting her after sending a couple of silly schoolgirl texts. Not if they were now including me in their plans. I wanted so much to help Aria figure this out, if only she'd let me.

I got out of the shower and went to check the time on the clock in the living room. 7:35. Looked like I would be fashionably late. But not so much if I hurried. I quickly dried my hair and donned my tux and mask.

I was just about to head out the door when I noticed that the money was still just sitting in the bag on the coffee table. Not smart. I needed to put it somewhere. Especially since I couldn't exactly deposit that money. I had a feeling A didn't want a paper trail. Well, the sock drawer seemed as good a place as any, so much so that it was almost cliché. I took everything out of the drawer and arranged the money so that it formed a layer on the bottom. Then I put the socks back in and shut the drawer. Again, I was hit with a feeling in my gut that told me this was wrong and I was about to get in way over my head. But I knew there was no turning back now. I walked out the door and headed to the ball.

I arrived around 8:30, only half an hour late. Not wanting to waste the precious little time I would have with Aria tonight by looking for her, I decided to make her come to me. But I wanted her to be surprised when she saw me. I sent a text.

_Still wish I could be there, but I've arranged a little surprise for you in my absence. Go to the potted palm in the courtyard. I love you._

I waited at the egde of the crowd to see which end of the maze she would walk into. I took the opposite exit and hid around one of the corners. When she got to the palm, I started to walk towards her, still staying out of sight. What I didn't count on was scaring her.

"Hello?" she called, her voice shaking a bit.

And then it hit me. She probably thought it was A who had sent that text. Well, I was A tonight, in a way. But that was beside the point. This had been a stupid idea. I should have just stood there by the plant.

"No matter how hard I try," I said, stepping into view, "I can't stay away from you." If she only knew how true that really was.

Aria gasped and ran towards me. The second she was in my arms, I remembered why I wanted to be in Rosewood so badly, and why I had taken that fifty grand. It wasn't to transport some stupid package for A. It was to be with Aria. I held her tighter than I ever had, just relishing in the moment and trying to forget, just for a little while, about the dark deed I had to do in just three hours' time.

After a couple of minutes, I pulled back to look at her. She looked amazing, wearing a red and black dress with a black sequined mask.

"Good surprise?" I asked.

She laughed, but it was wrong. The mask made it impossible to see her eyes light up like they always did.

"You look beautiful," I told her. "Shall we?" I held out my hand. She took it, and I led her inside to the dance floor.

I pulled Aria in for a dance, but something felt wrong. It wasn't knowing that the reason I was really here tonight was to be A's puppet. It was something else, and it took a few seconds to put my finger on it. Then I realized what it was. I hadn't seen Aria in a couple of weeks, and the first time we were seeing each other was with masks over our faces. More than that, this was our first dance. Screw protocol. I had to see her face. I sighed and pulled back.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"This is our first dance," I said, reaching for the ribbon to her mask. "I want to see you."

I undid her mask and pulled it off, and then took my mask off as well. Yes, this was right. THIS was what I had come here for. I leaned in for a kiss.

As our lips met, I realized this had all been worth it. Whatever A wanted me to transport, even if it was a dead body, I would do it with a smile if it meant that I would be able to stay here in Rosewood with Aria. This was where I belonged, no matter if I got another job teaching or not.

Wait. Had I actually just told myself that I would transport a dead body with a smile in order to stay with Aria? What kind of a sick person was I? Jesus. I just…I couldn't leave Aria again. It hurt just to imagine it. Besides, I had to do whatever A wanted me to do tonight, no matter what it was, because Aria's safety depended on it.

It seemed like only a few minutes later that Emily ran up to us.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Fitz, but I need to borrow Aria for a minute," she said. She looked and sounded panicked.

Aria looked at me apologetically. "I'm so sorry, Ezra, but this is important. I'll be back soon."

Of course it was important. I was willing to bet every dime of that fifty grand I had hidden in my sock drawer that it was something to do with A.

"It's fine," I told them. I kissed Aria one last time and let go of her hand. "Good to see you, Emily. And please, call me Ezra. I'm not your teacher anymore."

Emily smiled at me and then led Aria away.

As soon as they were gone, my phone buzzed, indicating a text.

_Tick tock, Ezra. The clock's running out…  
-A_

Shit. I'd been so lost in my thoughts and my time with Aria that I'd completely lost track of time. I glanced at the time on my phone. 11:15. I only had 45 minutes to get to the cabin. That wasn't even enough time to find Aria and invent an excuse to leave. I had to go right now.

I made it to Noel's cabin with ten minutes to spare. My phone buzzed the second I turned the car off.

_Go around the back. The package and instructions are on the back porch. Remember, more than just money is at stake.  
-A_

I walked slowly around the back, careful to make as little noise as possible. As soon as I turned the corner to the back of the building, I saw it.

Holy shit! It WAS a dead body. Oh, Christ, what the hell had I gotten myself into? I should never have come back. I should never have even opened that damn email. But now if I didn't move this body, something would happen to Aria. I was sure A would make good on their threats. I felt sick.

I walked a bit closer and then I saw who it was. Jesus. It was Maya, Emily's girlfriend. Bile rose in my mouth and I knew I couldn't hold it in. I ran far off into the woods and vomited violently, using a tree for support. Who would do this to a sixteen-year-old kid? And then have the body moved? I heaved again, but nothing came out.

There was nothing for it. I had to move Maya wherever A told me to. Aria's safety was on the line. I took a couple of deep breaths, steeled myself, and went back to the cabin. From the looks of things, Maya had been dead at least a day, maybe longer. There was a pair of black gloves and a black hoodie sitting next to her body, with a typewritten note on top.

_Take Maya home. Wear these and make sure you're not seen.  
-A_

Take her home? What did that mean? I didn't know where she lived. Wait, yes I did. She lived in Alison DiLaurentis's old house. I guessed that was where A meant. Wow, the bodies of two teenage girls found there within less than a year of each other? How messed up was that? There had to be a curse on that house.

I took a deep breath, put on the hoodie and gloves, and carefully picked Maya up, cradling her as one would a child. Holy crap, she was heavy. I remembered hearing something about dead weight being heavier than alive weight, and this was certainly proof of that. Maya could not have weighed more than 100 pounds dripping wet, but it felt like I was carrying at least 150 pounds. I walked back to my car and opened the door to the backseat, and then carefully laid her down inside and shut the door. Through the tinting, it almost looked like she was just sleeping. The tears that had been threatening to fall since I first saw Maya's body finally sprang free. I got in the car and drove away from there as fast as I could. I just wanted to get this over with.

I parked a safe distance away from Maya's house and walked around the back, then carefully laid her down underneath some bushes in the backyard. I kissed the tips of my gloved fingers and then pressed them to her forehead.

"I'm so sorry, Maya," I whispered into the darkness, sobbing. Then I walked away.

I got back into my car and raced home. I'd showered before I left for the ball, but I felt the need to take another one. I just stood there, letting the hot water wash over me, but I still felt dirty. Somewhere deep down, I knew that no amount of water could wash away the sickening feeling I had that this wasn't over or the sorrow I felt knowing that someone was sick and twisted enough to murder a child.

I only got out of the shower when the hot water turned cold. I just changed into boxers and a t-shirt and curled up in a ball on my bed, feeling numb.

Why had A even given me that money to move Maya's body? If A knew how I felt about Aria, and clearly they did, then they had to know that threatening to harm her would have been enough to get me to do whatever they wanted. I went over and over the facts in my head, and only one scenario made sense. A wasn't done with me. For whatever reason, A needed me here in Rosewood and knew that I needed money to be able to stay. This terrified me. What else could A possibly want from me? And why me?

It was around three in the morning when I heard the knock on my door that I both dreaded and longed for. I needed to see Aria to know that she was all right, but I knew that she knew me too well and would be able to tell that something was wrong. And I knew that I couldn't tell her the truth. But I had to let her in. I got up and went to the door.

I was expecting Aria's wrath for abandoning her at the ball. What I got instead was something completely different. I opened the door and she practically fell into my arms, weeping uncontrollably. She was still wearing her ball gown.

"Aria? What's going on?" I asked, my own troubles all but forgotten.

She couldn't move or even talk enough to tell me. She just stood there in my arms, in the doorway, bawling her eyes out. I gently pulled her inside, closed the door, and led her to the couch. I sat her down and turned to go make her something hot to drink, but before I could walk away, she grabbed my hand.

"Don't leave me," she sobbed.

I sat down and pulled her close.

"Never," I said, kissing the top of her head.

For a long time, I just held her and let her cry. After what seemed like hours, she finally started to talk. What I heard was worse than I'd ever imagined. This A person had definitely done more than pull some silly schoolgirl pranks. This person had driven these girls insane, terrorized them, and tried to rip their lives apart. A had threatened the life of the therapist's son who the girls were seeing to make the therapist go out of town, then had made the girls believe that she had been kidnapped and her life was in danger. The girls had been led on a wild goose chase, doing all sorts of insane things, because they believed that they were trying to save Dr. Sullivan's life. That was the day Aria had gone to Jackie and tried to blackmail her into leaving Hollis by threatening to reveal that the paper Jackie was about to get published was plagiarized. Well, at least that made sense now, because I knew even then that Aria would never have done that on her own. A had also been taunting the girls with new details and "clues" surrounding Alison's death.

Tonight, the girls had found out that A was Mona, one of Hanna's best friends. They had caught her after she tried to kill Spencer. And, of course, as if that wasn't traumatic enough, Maya's body had also been discovered in her backyard tonight.

What I couldn't tell Aria was that I knew this wasn't the end of it. Mona couldn't have been working alone. If she was, that money would not be in my sock drawer right now. I couldn't tell Aria anything at all about the events of my day or about what I knew about A. I knew it would only put her in more danger if she knew.

Right then and there, I vowed to myself that I would do everything in my power to make sure that Aria and her friends stayed safe. Even if that meant getting sucked into A's twisted game. Maybe, if I could get A to trust me, I could figure out who A was. And maybe, just maybe, I could end this once and for all.


	2. The Nightmare Returns

Chapter 2  
_The Nightmare Returns_

Summer break was at an end. Almost three whole months of peace. I still didn't have a job, but in a lot of ways, I was happier than I'd ever been. Living frugally, I'd been able to stay in Rosewood without even touching the blood money in my sock drawer. If I could avoid it at all, I didn't want to spend a dime of that money. It seemed wrong to do that. Plus, I wanted to keep it as evidence to use against A if I ever needed to.

Aria's parents had started to be a little more accepting of the fact that she and I were together, though neither of them were thrilled about it. But at least we no longer had to hide our relationship and it was much easier to see each other when we weren't sneaking around.

And, perhaps best of all, A had not contacted me or the girls since the night of the masquerade ball. Maybe it really was over. Maybe Mona _had_ been working alone. And Mona was safely locked away in a mental hospital now, so maybe we'd heard the last we would hear from A. All I knew was that since that awful night, Aria, her friends, and I had not heard a peep from the psycho who had made her life a living hell for months and had dragged me into their sick, twisted game.

Of course, there had been lingering effects from A's torture. Aria, until very recently, had woken up screaming in the middle of the night almost every night she stayed with me (and, I imagined, nights she didn't stay with me too). That seemed to have stopped now, thank goodness. She also still jumped every time her phone buzzed. I'd tried to help with that by sending her more texts, but that only worked when she wasn't with me. Which, lately, hadn't been very often.

Me? My heart still stopped for a second every time I got an email. Even though I'd only gotten one email from A, it had been enough to scare the living hell out of me. That email had begun the chain of events that made what should have been a joyous occasion into the worst day of my entire life. It went without saying that I had no desire to get another one.

This was Labor Day weekend, the last weekend of summer. I'd wanted to spend it with Aria, especially Sunday, since it was the one year anniversary of the day we'd first met. But Emily had just gotten back from her summer vacation building houses in Haiti, so the girls were going to spend the weekend together. So I was stuck at home by myself, writing.

As I sat at my computer, I realized that I didn't just like having Aria around because of the company, or even because I loved her. I liked having her around because when I wasn't alone, I couldn't get lost in my head. Something like moving the dead body of someone you care about doesn't just go away, and while I was alone with no one to turn to, the memories popped up.

I remembered vividly the way I felt, the way Maya looked just lying there on Noel's back porch, the weight of her body in my arms as I carried her to my car. And, for what seemed like the millionth time, the tears came. I should never have even left Rosewood in the first place. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have been so desperate to get back here and I wouldn't have even opened the email and made a deal with the devil. Deals with the devil rarely ended with just one job. I had a feeling in my gut that this still wasn't over, that A would come back one day and use something else to get me to do their dirty work.

My computer pinged. Looking at the clock in my living room, I realized that I'd been sitting there for over two hours and hadn't written a single word. I pulled my email screen up.

My heart stopped. Time was at a standstill. The email was from an unknown, blocked sender. I had been right. A wasn't done with me. And this subject line didn't seem very promising.

**Silent as the grave…**

There was an attachment. Shit. I knew I had no choice but to open that email. A did not mess around, and not having read the email would not be enough of a reason to keep A from doing whatever they were going to do. I took a deep, shaky breath and opened it.

_Did you think it would be that easy to get rid of me? Your services are required once again. Go to Alison DiLaurentis's grave tonight at 9pm. Wear the hoodie and gloves you were given last time. Fail to show up, and something unfortunate could happen to Aria this evening. This time, silence, not money, will be your reward. I know all, but if you keep quiet, so will I…  
-A_

The attachment was a video, titled DontStandSoCloseToMe. I didn't even have to open it to know that it would be a video of me and Aria while I was still teaching at Rosewood High School. I'd heard the song. But I was curious which of the many forbidden moments A had chosen to blackmail me with, so I opened it anyway.

My God. It was a video taken inside my classroom at the high school. It was the day Aria had walked into the classroom to ask me to go to the art opening in Philadelphia with her. From the vantage point, it looked like it was taken from the clock. I kept watching, and then saw the limo pulling up outside of my apartment building, Aria getting inside, and us kissing as the tinted window rolled up. Then, there we were outside the art gallery, kissing. How foolish could we have been? We'd thought that no one knew, that because we weren't in Rosewood, no one who shouldn't see would be watching. But, of course, A knew all. And if I didn't do whatever A wanted, I had a feeling this video would circulate in all the wrong places, causing all kinds of trouble for me and for Aria.

And, once again, A had threatened Aria. So I had no choice. I would have to go to Alison's grave tonight and do whatever A wanted me to.

At 9pm sharp, I walked up to Alison's grave, wearing the required gear. There was a shovel leaning against the headstone.

Oh, God. It couldn't be what it seemed like. Could it? Oh, who was I kidding? This was A. Of course it could be. And it probably was. I just stood there, waiting for the text that would certainly come.

As I expected, my phone buzzed after a minute.

_Dig down to the coffin and leave the shovel sticking in the ground when you're done. Make sure you're not seen leaving the graveyard.  
-A_

Well, at least A didn't want me to actually take the body. I grabbed the shovel and got to work.

As I dug, I tried to figure out the logic behind all of this. And I couldn't. Moving dead bodies to be found when and where A wanted them found? Grave robbing? It made no sense, other than for shock value. And clearly A didn't trust me if they felt the need to blackmail me into doing this, so I wasn't going to find out any time soon.

I realized that if I was going to stop A, I was going to have to find out A's end game. And to do that, I would need to get A to trust me and become a real part of this sinister organization. But how to do it without making it obvious that I was fishing for information? I realized that one way was to actually spend that fifty grand. I was sure A was watching my spending habits and knew that I hadn't touched that money. That had to be cause for suspicion.

I also needed to do more for A. Since I had no way of contacting A, I had no way to volunteer myself for any tasks. But I could do whatever they asked of me, to the letter. The only things I would refuse to do would be things that would directly hurt Aria or her friends. And that would come as no huge shock to A. A knew that in order to keep me in line, threats against Aria worked like a charm. So A would realize that there was not a snowflake's chance in hell of getting me to do something that would hurt her.

I discovered the hard way that grave robbing is not an easy job. A was definitely getting me to do the grunt work. It takes time and lots of upper body strength to dig down six feet to a casket. By the time I was done, which was about four hours later, my arms and back were killing me. And then I had to get myself out of the literal hole I had dug myself into. That was a whole new experience in pain. But I did it. And then I stuck the shovel in the ground just like A instructed and hightailed it out of the graveyard.

The obvious move would have been to wait out of sight to see who took the body. But, if I wanted to catch the person who was really responsible for all this terror and mayhem, I knew that would not be productive. I was sure A had a way of watching to make sure I did as I was told. If that was the case, A would know that I was watching and would be suspicious. Besides, whoever would be taking Alison's body, I was sure it was not the real A and this person probably knew as much as I did about who the real A was. Catching this person would be completely useless.

So I headed home, hid the hoodie and gloves in the bottom of my laundry hamper so Aria wouldn't find them the next time she was at the apartment, and headed to the shower. I felt dirty, and not just because there was actual dirt all over me from digging up a grave. I felt dirty because I knew how wrong this all was. I was in way over my head already, but I knew that the only way to stop A was to get in even deeper. I'd already moved one dead body and dug up another. This was a slippery slope I was getting myself onto. What other horrific things did A have in store for me?

It didn't seem very manly, but I was scared. Hell, I was beyond scared. I was terrified out of my wits. I was scared for my safety. I was scared for Aria's safety, and for her friends' safety too. I was scared of going to prison if I was found out. I was scared of what A would have me do in order to prove myself.

But all of that paled in comparison to another very real fear: the fear of knowing that I would lose Aria, probably for good, if she found out that I was involved with this. I had to come up with a believable alibi for what I was doing in case she ever did find any of it out. I knew she would never believe the truth, and even if she would, it was too dangerous for her to know until it was all over. So what kind of an explanation could I possibly give that would give me a reason to know everything I knew?

And then inspiration hit: I could act as though I was writing a true crime novel. I knew enough about Alison's disappearance and death to write a book already, and I could use what I knew to write a fake manuscript. Or at least part of one. The problem was that this would require me to tell a lie that would hurt Aria even more. I would have to tell her that I'd known all about her and her friends before I came to this town for my research. I'd have to tell her that I took the job teaching to get close to them and find out more about Alison. I would tell her that I didn't plan on falling in love with her, and that when I had realized what was happening between us, I'd stopped writing the book.

Aria would be hurt beyond belief with this lie and I would lose her anyway. But at least she would be safe and she wouldn't know the truth about what I was doing. And her safety was more important than my happiness. Once this was all over and I'd caught the real A and turned them over to the police, I would explain everything to Aria, or at least try to. But until then, if she found any part of what I was doing out, I would have to hurt her in order to help her. It made me sick imagining it, so I prayed that she would never find out.

When I got out of the shower and into bed, exhaustion hit. I fell asleep and only awoke the next morning to incessant knocking at my door. I rolled out of bed (very painfully—my arms and back hurt worse today than they had last night) and walked over to the door. On the other side was a very frightened-looking Aria.

"Hey," I said, trying to knock the cobwebs out of my brain. "I thought you were with your friends this weekend."

"We were up at Spencer's lake house, but we came back to town when her mom called us with the news," she said.

I knew full well what news that would be, but I couldn't let on about that to her.

"What news?" I asked.

Aria just handed me my newspaper as she walked inside and plopped herself down on the couch. I looked at the front page as I shut the door. It was a feature on Alison's body being missing and also about Maya's death.

"I thought we were done with all this," Aria sighed. "Who would do something like that to Alison?"

I walked over and sat on the couch.

"I don't know," I said, pulling her into my arms and kissing her on the forehead. "Listen, I literally woke up to you knocking on the door. Are you okay if I clean myself up a bit and put on some coffee? Or do you need me to stay with you for a little while?"

"I'll be fine," she said. "Just being here helps. I feel better knowing I'm somewhere safe."

I was glad to know that she equated being with me with safety, because what I was doing, essentially, was risking my life to make sure that she stayed safe. And there was not a doubt in my mind that it was the right thing to do.

"Okay, then. I won't take long." I kissed her quickly before getting up.

When I got out of the bathroom, teeth brushed, shaved, and clothed, I found Aria asleep on my couch. I decided against making coffee for now. My coffee maker made too much noise, and I had the feeling she needed the rest. I just hoped her dreams were peaceful ones. I gently picked up her feet and sat down on the sofa, putting them in my lap. I grabbed the newspaper and read the article, hoping to find answers. Instead, it just brought up more questions.

Apparently the prosecution was going to call for an exhumation of Alison's body for Garrett's trial, but the grave had been robbed before the judge could sign the order. Was there evidence on the body that A didn't want the prosecution to find? Something that would convict Garrett? Or maybe something that would get him off?

Also, there was information about Maya. It was common knowledge that when Maya's family had moved into the DiLaurentis' house, a lot of Alison's things had been left behind. There was suspicion that Maya might have found a clue to help solve Alison's murder in those belongings. Interesting. Was A trying to help Garrett by killing Maya because she knew he was guilty? Or was A trying to make Garrett look guilty for a crime he hadn't committed so that Alison and Maya's real killer could go free?

Well, so much for answers and clues. That hadn't helped me at all. I sighed and put the paper down on the coffee table, grabbing my much-loved copy of _The Great Gatsby_ instead. I needed a break from this A stuff. My head was spinning. I needed an escape into fantasy for a while.

About an hour later, Aria awoke suddenly, gasping. She looked around, as if she was trying to figure out where she was.

"Are you okay?" I asked her. I didn't get a response. "Aria?"

Still gasping, Aria just sat up, still not saying a word.

"I thought the nightmares stopped," I said, more a question than a statement.

"I guess they started again," she said, still sounding like she wasn't quite sure that she wasn't in the middle of the terror from her dreams.

Wonderful. The insanity of last night and today had brought Aria's nightmares back. Forget turning A into the police. I wanted to strangle A with my bare hands.

"Hey," I said, brushing her hair away from her face. "You're still safe, Aria. There's no more A. You were far away from this mess last night. Thank God you stayed at Spencer's lake house."

Aria just nodded, still looking a little frazzled.

"Did you read this?" I asked her, grabbing the newspaper off of the coffee table.

She shook her head.

"Apparently Maya found some things that belonged to Alison."

"No, no, she gave everything to Jason," Aria said, sounding a little more awake now.

"Well, actually, they think she may have kept something. Something that connected Garrett to Alison's murder."

"That doesn't make sense," Aria retorted. "She would have told Emily."

"Well, maybe that's what she was on her way to do, but Garrett found her first," I said, for a moment getting lost in my memories of last night, and of that horrible night two months ago.

But Aria was with me. I couldn't go there now. And I knew exactly how to get both of our minds off of this horror.

"Do you know what this weekend is?" I asked, smiling.

"How could I forget?" Aria sighed, getting up and heading towards the kitchen. "Labor Day is the anniversary of Alison's death." She grabbed a bottle of wine out of the fridge.

I was a little disappointed that she would equate this weekend with that rather than with the fact that we'd first met a year ago, but then I supposed that was to be expected. Alison had been one of her best friends. And with everything that happened after the funeral, how could I blame her for remembering when it all started? But that wasn't what I wanted this weekend to be about. I wanted it to be about us.

"Or," I said, getting up to follow her to the kitchen, "I was about to start a teaching job. And you thought you might like to teach… Was that true, or were you just hitting on me?"

Finally, the smile I loved so much spread across her face.

"Did you really play B-26, or were you just hitting on me?" she asked. She set the bottle of wine down on the counter.

I chuckled. "Can we make this _our_ anniversary, instead of hers?" I asked, wrapping my arms around her waist. "Meet me tomorrow night at the Rosewood Grille. I will be the guy at the bar reading _Ulysses._"

"You still haven't finished that book?" she teased, winding her arms around my neck.

"No one has."

We both laughed.

"I'm just a hopeless romantic," I said. "I thought we could recreate the date."

"I wouldn't exactly call it a _date_," she told me. "We ended the night in the bathroom."

"I remember. I think it went something like…this?" I lifted her up onto the kitchen counter. Christ, that hurt. Muscles I didn't even know I had in my arms seemed to burst into flame.

"And then I did something like this." Aria wrapped her legs around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss.

And as we kissed, reminiscing about how we met, I knew that all of the pain I felt, physical and emotional, was worth it. Aria was worth all of this and more. The way I felt about her made me realize that I'd never truly loved anyone before. I would gladly do whatever it took to keep her safe.

We were interrupted by her cell phone ringing. It was her mother.

"Crap!" Aria said, jumping off the counter and running to put her shoes back on.

"What is it?"

"I promised my mom that I'd help her pack up some of her clothes today," she explained.

Right. She had mentioned that recently. Her parents were getting a divorce and Ella was moving into an apartment.

"Oh, right, you told me about that," I said, walking over and wrapping my arms around her waist from behind.

Aria stopped what she was doing and leaned back into me.

"This is not helping me leave," she told me.

"That's kind of the point," I whispered right into her ear. I kissed her neck.

She sighed and turned around for another kiss.

"Okay, now I really do have to go," she grumbled a minute later when she finally broke the kiss.

"Okay," I said, letting her go. "So, tomorrow night? Is it a date?"

"Absolutely," Aria told me, heading for the door.

"Seven okay?" I asked, following her to shut the door behind her.

"Perfect," she said, kissing me quickly one last time before walking out the door.

The second Aria left the apartment, I headed to my computer. I figured I had better start working on this fake true crime novel sooner rather than later, so I started writing. I worked through the rest of the day and late into the night, finally calling it quits around three in the morning. I had a few chapters done, but I was still a far cry from this being good enough or long enough to use as an alibi if Aria found me out.

I was back at the computer working the next day when I got a text from Aria at around five.

_Police just got here. Taking me and the girls in for questions. Be there as soon as I can._

Wait, why were the girls being questioned? They were at Spencer's lake house when this all happened. They couldn't have had anything to do with it. Then again, the police in this town were known for concentrating their efforts in the wrong places. Well, if Aria thought that I was going to be anywhere other than at that police station waiting for her when she got out, she was mistaken. I cleaned myself up and headed to the station.

When I got there, Aria's mother was standing outside talking to Hanna and Spencer's mothers. She saw me out of the corner of her eye and excused herself from the others.

"Have you seen her?" I asked Ella as she approached me. "Is she okay?"

"She hasn't come out yet," Ella told me. "Look, I get why you're here, and I'm sure she'd appreciate it, but I think the last thing she needs right now is the police questioning her relationship with a former teacher."

Great. We were back to this. Was this really necessary right now? Aria was in the police station being questioned for something she couldn't possibly have had anything to do with. I was here because I cared about Aria, not because I wanted to get in a pissing contest with her mother for the millionth time.

"I thought we were past this," I said, shaking my head.

Ella just stared at me, narrowing her eyes. Right. We would never be past this.

As luck would have it, Aria walked out of the police station at that exact moment, smiling when she saw me. Well, at least one of them was glad I was here.

"Are you okay? Do I need to talk to them?" Ella asked her.

I rolled my eyes. Aria was a lot tougher than Ella knew. And at this point, being questioned by the police was becoming pretty commonplace to her.

"No, I'm fine," Aria told her. "I just want to get out of here."

"Well, we could still make our reservation," I suggested. This got me another glare from Ella. "Or…maybe we could do this another time?"

"No, I'm sure we could all use a bite, right?" Aria said.

Now Ella's glare was directed at Aria, but then she seemed to change her mind, realizing that Aria wasn't about to let me just leave.

"Yes," she said. "Um…let's go." She turned and quickly walked past me.

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders as I offered Aria my arm.

Dinner with Ella was surprisingly pleasant. And, once Aria promised her that she really hadn't been traumatized by the police and that she would come by the next day to help finish packing up, we were finally left alone for the evening. So, for old times' sake, we ended our date at the Rosewood Grille in the restroom, just as we had the first night we met.

Later that night, as Aria slept soundly beside me, an awful thought crossed my mind. What if A had someone in the police department on their side? And what if someone had planted evidence implicating Aria and her friends? And I realized that I could find out by doing more than just making a fake manuscript. Everyone in this town knew I was a writer. I could go to the police station and try to get my hands on Alison's case file, claiming it was for research for a book. And this would actually strengthen my cover story of writing a book anyway.

But not tonight. More than enough had happened the last couple of days. Now, I needed to try to sleep and remember the good parts of this Labor Day weekend. Tomorrow would be another day, and maybe then I would finally be able to find some answers to the many questions that were forming in my mind about recent events, and more importantly, about who this A person was who seemed hell-bent on destroying all of our lives.


	3. Sinking

Chapter 3  
_Sinking_

I hadn't realized how much Aria being at the apartment for all that time during the summer was helping me until the time came for her to go back to school. She had helped me to stay grounded more than I realized. In the midst of all the insanity of the past few days, she was the one thing that had helped me keep my perspective. And now she had other things to do during the day.

I still was working on that fake true crime novel, just in case Aria found out what I was up to. And part of that was looking over Alison and Maya's case files, which were almost too easy to obtain from Rosewood's police department. But rather than helping me get any closer to solving the mystery of A, they only produced more questions. Why would I have expected anything else? A was too good at covering tracks to leave anything on the bodies that would lead back in their direction.

But seriously, both of these case files, especially Alison's, had so many holes and gaps in information that they were like Swiss cheese. For instance, there was no actual DNA testing done on Alison's body. They just assumed that it was her body because it had been found in her backyard and the person was a female who had been dead for about as long as Alison had been missing. But why would they just assume that? Because if it really was Alison, wouldn't they have found her body sooner? They had been over every inch of her property with a fine toothed comb and ground-penetrating radar. Surely they would have found a body sooner than a year later.

Unless…what if this was not actually Alison's body? Or what if it was and someone had planted it there? Just judging from the personal experience I had with A, that seemed right up A's alley. A had me move Maya's body to be found when and where they wanted. And A also had me dig up Alison's grave so that they could steal the body.

And there was the whole issue of the prosecution in Garrett Reynolds' trial calling for an exhumation of the body so they could re-examine it. Maybe A wanted to steal the body because if the police did more examination and testing, they would find out that this body was not in fact the body of Alison DiLaurentis. And if this body was not Alison's body, then all the "evidence" the police had against Garrett was useless. It seemed to me like someone was trying to frame Garrett Reynolds for a crime that he seemed less and less guilty of by the minute.

I heard the key turning in the lock on my door and quickly shut the folder containing the case files and hid it in the bottom of one of my desk drawers.

"Hey," Aria said as she walked in.

"Hey. How was your first day back?"

"Better than Emily's," Aria said, sighing as she sat down on the couch.

"What do you mean?" I asked as I got up to join her.

"Well…she's still kind of in shock over the whole Maya thing. And because she missed all of April, they're making her retake four of her final exams. If she doesn't pass them, she'll have to repeat 11th grade. She's kind of overwhelmed."

"I'm so sorry," I told Aria. "That can't be easy for her to deal with."

"Well, don't be mad, but I kind of suggested to her that she call you," Aria said, looking like she was confessing to a crime. "She needs a tutor, and I figured you might be able to help."

I laughed. "Why would I be mad? It's not that far of a stretch."

"So you'll do it?" she asked excitedly.

"Of course I'll do it," I said, giving her a quick kiss. "It's not like I'm too busy working right now."

"Thank you. Her first exam is next Thursday, and lucky for you, it's in English."

Aria pulled me in for a kiss, and for a little while, I forgot about Emily and about the mystery of Alison's case file. I lost myself in her instead.

After Aria left for the evening, I pulled out the case file again. And I still couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. I was pretty sure that I knew one person who WOULD be able to, but I really didn't want to go there. Because the one person I knew who might be able to make sense of it was currently locked up in a mental hospital because she had psychologically tortured Aria and her friends for months. I didn't want to go to Mona for answers. But it also seemed that I had no choice. Mona would know about this, and, perhaps more importantly, about what A wanted with me.

So I went to the hospital. I'd never been in an asylum before, and the way it looked in here, I had no desire to ever come back to one again. I'd never quite understood what people meant when they said someone looked crazy. Until I saw Mona sitting in her hospital room.

Mona was dressed in socks and a hospital gown, just staring off into space. She was looking at me, but it was like she didn't see me. She seemed to be looking right through me, yet I could tell she knew I was there.

"Ezra," she said in a monotone voice.

It was strange, her not calling me Mr. Fitz. But it also made sense. I was not her teacher anymore, and hadn't been for a while. Plus, I knew she had something to do with the insanity that had been happening in Rosewood. So why would she be acting like a student in here?

"Hello, Mona," I said, trying not to let my growing level of discomfort come through in my voice.

"I knew you'd come to see me eventually," she said, still in the same monotone. It was eerie. Like talking to one of those fortune teller machines you find in old arcades and malls.

"What do you know about A?" I asked her.

I wasn't here to play cryptic mind games. I was here to get answers, to figure out how to solve this deadly mystery that was growing larger by the minute, and to find out how I could keep Aria safe.

"You're asking the wrong question," Mona told me.

I was starting to wonder at this point if this crazy act was just that: an act. It was almost too much, like she was trying too hard to appear crazy. Mona knew exactly what she was talking about and was still very much involved with everything that was happening, I could tell. But, act or no act, I needed answers and I needed them now. And Mona had them. So, if asking her what she knew about A was the wrong question, what was the right one?

"Why me?" I tried.

"You already know the answer to that. Try again."

What did she mean, I already knew the answer? I didn't know anything. I had no idea what A wanted with me. Unless… What if A was using me to hurt Aria? Not directly, but just by getting me involved. If Aria found out about this, it would devastate her. She might never be the same again. I wanted to just get out for good, but I knew I couldn't do that now. I had no choice. I knew A would really hurt Aria if I didn't do what they wanted. I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

"What does A want?" I asked Mona. "What am I supposed to be doing?"

"You have to earn the right to know that," she told me. "And you can…by taking over surveillance. You have to find out their secrets."

Taking over surveillance? Now _I _was supposed to be the person who knew everything about everyone? I was supposed to spy on my girlfriend and her friends? Well, if I could infiltrate this network and end this by doing a little bit of spying, I guessed I could deal with that. It was a means to an end, a little evil to do a greater good.

"How to I start?" I asked her, feeling a little sick.

"You have to earn it," she repeated.

"Mona, I want to do this, but I'm in over my head here. I don't know what I'm doing."

Mona didn't say anything else. She just went back to staring right through me. I figured that was all I would get out of her. The rest, I would have to figure out for myself. Maybe part of "earning it" was figuring it all out.

The next day, I was still pondering how to go about this whole surveillance thing when I picked Aria up from school. Her mother was using her car at the moment, so she needed a ride. And, as it turned out, today Aria had her own drama to deal with.

Apparently Meredith, the student that her father had been having the affair with a couple of years ago, had applied for an open teaching position at the school. Aria, needless to say, was not happy about that and was worried about having to tell her mother.

"I don't get it," Aria complained as I parked three blocks from her house. "Why would she want to work at a school where she's going to have to bump into my mother every single day? And why should my mom have to go through this? She's been divorced for, like, twenty minutes."

"Aria, breathe," I told her. "Meredith applied for the position. It doesn't mean she got it. There's no reason to tell your mom."

"Seriously, though. Who is giving _that woman_ a reference? My dad?"

"Ooh, yeah, I wouldn't tell him either."

"Why? You think he has something to do with this?"

"No," I said. "I just think you're still walking on a bit of scorched earth when it comes to us. And if you put him on the defensive—"

"He's not in that place anymore," she interrupted.

"Then why am I dropping you off three blocks from your house?"

"Because he's still in that place." Aria sighed. "But I hate this. I hate having to sneak around and avoid saying your name." She grabbed my hand. "Feels like we're going backwards."

"One battle at a time," I told her. "We just had a nice dinner _with your mom_, okay? Let's celebrate what is working."

I kissed her, but her phone rang, interrupting the moment. She checked it.

"It's Emily," she said. "Has she called you yet?"

Right. Emily. In the midst of my much larger problems (like having to start spying on this girl sitting next to me, who I was hopelessly in love with), I'd forgotten that I'd agreed to tutor Emily for her makeup exams. Truth be told, I'd kind of been repressing that. I didn't really want to. I wasn't sure I could look Emily in the eye without bursting into tears. I'd held Emily's girlfriend's dead body in my hands. How was I supposed to think about anything else while I was around her?

But of course, I couldn't tell Aria that. And seeing as I wasn't actually working at the moment, I couldn't give a good excuse why I couldn't do it. So I had no choice. I shook my head at Aria to tell her that Emily had not called me yet.

"Why haven't you called Ezra yet?" Aria asked Emily, answering her phone. "Call him now. He's free." She hung up. "She's going to call you."

"I might not answer," I told her, only half teasing. I really wanted this time with Aria. I was starting to feel like I was crazy with everything going on. She kept me grounded.

"Ezra, she's sinking. Please?"

I couldn't say no to her. She hardly ever asked me for anything, especially not for her friends. I kissed her again, but this time it was my phone interrupting us. I was sure it was Emily.

Aria backed away, giving me a pointed look before getting out of my car. I sighed as I watched her walk away, then answered my phone.

"Hi, Emily. Aria said you might get in touch with me."

"Hi, Mr. Fitz," Emily said. She sounded nervous, like asking me for help was the last thing she wanted to be doing. "I hope this isn't too weird, but I have some makeup exams that I have to take because I was absent for a whole month at the end of school, and I could really use some help. Aria suggested that I call you, since one of them is in English."

"It's not too weird at all," I told her. "I'd be happy to help."

"Thank you," she sighed. She sounded relieved.

"Why don't you meet me at The Brew tomorrow after school?" I suggested. "We can get started."

"That sounds perfect. Thanks again." Emily hung up.

I sighed, wishing Aria had stayed in the car. I didn't really want to meet with Emily the next day, and I really didn't want to do what I knew I had to start doing: spying on the girls. Aria would have given me an excuse to put it off.

Later that night, when I couldn't procrastinate anymore, I decided to start with the "surveillance." I figured I'd start with Aria, since it wouldn't be quite so awkward if she caught me. Though how I was supposed to explain hiding in her bushes if she did catch me, I wasn't sure. Anyway, there I was, hiding in the shrubs outside my girlfriend's window.

Aria looked troubled, looking at a pair of earrings that she had taken from an envelope. She looked like they were bringing back memories of things she'd rather forget. I wished I could hold her and kiss away the memories. God, I was going to be horrible at this. Any time I saw Aria in any kind of pain, I was going to want to help her. But I couldn't ask her about anything I found out this way.

I shifted just a bit, and the bushes rustled. I had to quickly hide my head to keep her from seeing me when she turned to look. That was too close. A ninja, I was not. There had to be a better way to do this.

Then it hit me. Cameras. That was what I could do with that fifty grand in my sock drawer. If I was going to spend it, I might as well be spending it on something that could help me get to the bottom of this. Mona and her cronies might have been old school, but I was not. I would get a ton of surveillance cameras and put them all over town. This meant that I would get almost no sleep while I was putting them up, since I would have to do it in the dead of night, but this was also the best way to ensure that no one saw me doing any of this.

I would have to rent another apartment to keep the monitors in, of course, and go back every once in a while to check on them. Or maybe…I could use my family's cabin. They were never there. Ever since the accident that had happened there when I was in high school, not one member of my family had been there. Yes, that was a good plan. I would make that my center of operations.

Jesus, this was wrong. On so many levels. I wouldn't only see what the girls were hiding; I would see every private, intimate detail of their lives. I couldn't even fathom what A wanted with this information. And everyone was entitled to some privacy. I couldn't know everything. Except that I would now. But at least I would be the person who controlled the flow of information to A this way.

Wait…how was I supposed to get the information to A in the first place? Mona had neglected to mention that. That part, I couldn't figure out myself. I was in so far over my head that I didn't even know where the surface was anymore. I was sinking, and fast. But one thing at a time. Right now, I needed to get out of here. The bushes rustled again as I snuck out of them and hurried back home.

The next day, while the girls were at school, I went to Ravenswood, the next town over. There was a camera shop that sold exactly the sorts of things I would need. Of course, they wouldn't have the stuff in the quantities I would need, but I could order it.

I was shocked when the person at the camera shop didn't even question why I needed twenty-five security cameras and as many monitors and remote transmitters. Then again, I was sure he was getting commission from this sale, and that would equal a nice paycheck for him. He just placed the order and told me it would take a while for it all to come in. I told him I understood. I paid half right then as a deposit, and agreed to pay the other half when the order came in.

As I was walking out the door, I saw an old-fashioned Rolliflex camera. I immediately thought of Aria. She had taken a photography class over the summer and had really enjoyed it. I was sure she would love this camera. It cost about $400, but the surveillance equipment had not even cost me half of that fifty grand. Besides, if I was going to convince A that I was in this for the long haul, I would have to act like I had money to burn. Why couldn't I buy a nice gift for my girlfriend?

"Does this camera still work?" I asked the salesman, holding up the Rolliflex.

"Yep, it's still in perfect condition," he told me.

I brought it up to the counter.

"My girlfriend will love this," I told him as I pulled out the money to pay for it.

"She into photography?" he asked.

"Yes, she took a class this past summer and loved it."

"Well, this camera will last forever, and it takes great pictures. She'll have this for a long time," he told me as he wrote out the sales receipt.

I walked out the door, sales receipts and Rolodex in hand, and checked the time. It was 2:00. I realized I might be a little late getting back to Rosewood. I sent a text to Emily.

_Had an errand to run out of town. On my way back now. 4:00 OK?_

She responded almost immediately.

_Sounds great. See you then._

I got in the car and headed back to Rosewood. I went back to my apartment quickly to file away the sales receipts, hide the camera for an opportune time, and grab the study materials. She had been in my class last year, so I had all of the materials already. I grabbed my copy of _Ethan Frome_ and all of the study guides on the book and walked out the door.

I got to the coffee shop about 15 minutes early, so I got a cup of coffee and grabbed a table by the window. Emily walked in right at 4. She saw me and headed over, looking…embarrassed, I guessed was the right word.

"Hey, there," I said as she walked up to the table.

"Hey," she said, looking down, like she couldn't quite meet my eye.

I had been right. I couldn't even look at Emily without seeing Maya's dead body in my mind. And what made it even worse was that Emily still looked broken. She was still healing from the loss. But I had to get past that. Emily needed help, and I was able to help her. Maybe this was my penance for what I had done for A, moving Maya's body. Having to help her girlfriend struggle through her studies and her loss.

"Can I get you, like, a cup of coffee or…?" I asked her.

"No, I'm okay," she said. "Thanks, Mr. Fitz."

I chuckled softly. "You can call me Ezra."

"No, I can't."

I gave her a pointed look. She was not my student anymore. She was one of my girlfriend's best friends. I wasn't comfortable with her calling me Mr. Fitz. I wasn't really comfortable with any of this, but I would have to get over that.

"But I can try," Emily said after a few seconds.

I smiled at her. I guessed I understood where she was coming from too. I _had _been her teacher. I was sure it was weird for her to see me as Aria's boyfriend rather than her former teacher.

"Have a seat," I told her. "So, Aria mentioned you're taking the English makeup exam this Thursday."

"Yeah. And then chem and history next week, and Spanish after that."

Emily still couldn't quite meet my eye. And I couldn't quite look her in the eye either. I tried not to focus on it, but I kept seeing Maya whenever I tried to look at her.

"Great," I said. "Well, I'm glad we can start with a language that I can actually speak…in…but not always so well." Oh, boy. I was slipping. I had to start talking about the book or I was going to completely stop making sense. "Did you like the novel?"

"Yeah, it was okay," Emily said. "Ending was kinda sad."

Of course the ending was sad. Just as her ending with the girl she loved had been sad. And there was Maya again. Maybe if I told Emily how sorry I was about Maya's death, I would be able to stop seeing Maya's cold, lifeless body every time I looked at her. It couldn't hurt, right?

"Emily…" I said, trying to find the right words. I guessed simplicity was best. "I'm so sorry about Maya."

"We don't have to talk about that," Emily said quickly, looking down.

"No, I know," I said. Lord knew I didn't want to spend much time on the subject. "But it's just that…I wanted you to know that. I'm just…sorry."

If only she knew how sorry I really was. I was sorry she lost the person she loved. I could only imagine what she was going through. I knew how I would feel if I lost Aria. I was sorry that I'd had a small part in Maya's death. Not that I'd actually had anything to do with killing her, but I couldn't help but see myself as having played a small role in Maya's death. I had, after all, moved her body to where A wanted it found.

Anyway, now I'd said it. And it was time to move on from that. I needed to help Emily. It was the only way I could see to repay her for what I'd done, even though she didn't know that I'd done it.

The rest of the tutoring session passed as one would expect. I went over the material with her. And I wasn't sure what she was so worried about. She had a firm grasp of the material. But, regardless, we agreed to meet the day before the test to go over it one more time.

When I met Emily again two days later, she seemed distracted. I was sure it was just from the stress of everything. She got through the first half of the review with no problems, but then she seemed to just tune out.

"So, next, cite an example of how the author uses symbolism," I said, continuing with the review.

Emily didn't respond. She looked like she had gone somewhere else in her head.

"Emily?" I asked.

"Sorry, what was the question?" Emily asked, shaking her head, like she was trying to clear her mind.

"Wharton's use of symbolism?" I tried again.

She still didn't respond. She just stared blankly in my direction, looking like she didn't even see me.

"The cat, the broken dish?" I suggested, trying to jog her memory and bring her out of whatever thoughts were troubling her. I knew this wasn't about the material itself, it was about the stress of the situation. "Emily…you know this material, and you've been in high pressure situations before. When you were swimming, you thrived on them, right?"

Emily nodded.

"Okay, so how did you prepare for a race? What did you do minutes before you jumped in that pool?"

"Um, I listened to music," she said, still sounding distracted. Maybe this was about more than just the tests.

"Then that's what you'll do before you take these exams," I told her. "Everything you need to know is already in your head."

Emily nodded. "I guess."

"I have every confidence that you'll ace this exam," I told her. "You whizzed through the review last time, and you were doing great until just a little while ago. I think you just need a break, and a good night's rest."

"Okay," she said, sounding a little more confident. "Thanks…Ezra."

I chuckled. She'd finally used my first name. "You're welcome. Let me know how everything turns out. And make sure you eat a good breakfast tomorrow. I know it sounds cliché, but it does help."

"I will," she said, getting up to leave.

Wait…I wasn't going to be here with Emily for another couple of hours. Maybe I could see Aria this afternoon. It had been a couple of days, and after everything that had happened the past few days, I needed to see her. I pulled out my phone and sent her a text.

_Session with Emily over early. Wanna come to my place?_

I resisted the temptation to plead, though I really wanted to. My phone buzzed after a minute.

_Sure. Just have to run home quickly. See you in an hour?_

Oh, thank God.

_Can't wait_, I texted back.

I grabbed all of the study materials and went home. It seemed an eternity later when I finally heard the key turn in the lock.

"Hey," Aria said as she came in the door.

I couldn't even talk, I was so glad to see her. I just walked up and kissed her. When she finally pulled back, I just led her to the couch and pulled her into my arms. For the first time in a few days, I didn't feel like I was sinking. It was like someone had thrown me a life raft and I was finally able to come up for air.

"What's going on?" she asked me after a few minutes.

I needed to calm myself down. I never acted like this with her. And she was here now. All was right in the world.

"Nothing," I lied. "I'm just happy to see you. I've missed you."

Aria chuckled. "It's only been a few days. But I know what you mean. I've missed you too." She kissed me again. "So Jenna asked me to be her accompanist for the assembly at school next week. I haven't played piano in forever."

Huh? This was weird. Jenna hated Aria. Why would she be asking her to play piano for her in an assembly?

"Why?" I asked.

"Beats me," Aria said. "I'm not gonna do it. She hates me, I'm rusty, and it's just weird."

"I don't blame you," I told her.

"So, how's Emily doing?"

"She knows the material, but she's nervous. I think she just needs a good night's rest and a good breakfast tomorrow before taking the test."

Aria smiled. "I'm glad you were there to help her. It makes me feel better knowing she's in capable hands."

"Well, I'm not so sure about that. I'm a little rusty myself," I teased.

Aria playfully slapped me. "How do you expect to get a job if you're talking about yourself like that?"

I chuckled. "You're right. I'm sure Emily will do great."

I sent Emily a text the next morning, just for a little extra encouragement.

_Good luck today. I know you'll do great!_

I never heard back from Emily, so I decided to go to the school and see her after the test to see how it went. What could I say? It wasn't like I was teaching anyone else at the moment, and I'd always taken a personal interest in every one of my students. When I got there, she was rushing out of the building like she'd just seen a ghost. She looked like she was trying her hardest to keep back tears.

"Emily?" I asked, stepping into her way so she wouldn't walk past me.

"Hi, Ezra," she said. She was definitely upset.

"Are you okay?" I asked. "How did the test go?"

"Horrible," she said. "I'm going to fail, and then I'm going to have to repeat 11th grade." The tears that she had been trying to hold back started to fall.

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad," I told her, giving her what I could tell was a much-needed hug.

"No, it was. It was awful. I knew that I knew the material, but somehow I just couldn't get the information out of my brain and onto the paper."

"You froze up. It happens. Who was administering the test?"

"Mrs. Montgomery," Emily told me.

"I'll give her a day to grade the tests, and then I'll talk to her," I told Emily. "I'll see if I can convince her to let you retake the test."

"Okay," she said.

"Everything's going to be alright, Emily," I told her. "I know there's a lot riding on these tests for you. I'm sure Mrs. Montgomery will let you retake the test."

"Thanks."

"Now, go home and get some rest. I'll see you in a few days to start studying for your history test, okay?"

"Okay," she said, wiping her eyes.

"Can I give you a ride somewhere?" I asked her.

"No, I've got one. Thanks, though."

"Okay. I'll see you soon," I said, turning to leave.

The next day after school, I went to Ella's classroom. Things hadn't exactly been warm and fuzzy between Ella and I, but this wasn't about Aria, so I figured she might be willing to listen. I knocked on the doorframe.

"Ella," I said. "Hey, sorry to disturb you. Do you have a minute?"

"Sure," she said cautiously. "But if this is about Aria—"

"It's Emily," I interrupted.

"What about her?" Ella sounded…defensive? Was that right?

"Well, I saw her after the makeup exam yesterday and she was distraught. She thought she did poorly," I told her. "I don't know if Aria has mentioned it, but I've been helping her prep for these exams, and I—"

"What is your question?" Ella asked. Yep, definitely defensive.

"I just wanted to know how she did."

"She did fine," Ella said cautiously.

"There's a lot riding on this for her. Maybe if she could take it again?" I tried.

"There's no need for her to take it again, Ezra. I understand what she's gone through. Emily did very well. We're all rooting for her to succeed."

Wait…had Ella done something to Emily's test? Was that what was going on here? Well, I couldn't exactly ask her about that. I would just have to hope that Emily said something to Aria and that Aria would tell me about it.

"Great," I said as I turned to leave.

Later that night, as Aria was cooking dinner, I decided to check my email to see if any of the schools I'd applied to had responded. Yep, they sure had. I had five different rejections. Wonderful.

I sighed as I shut my laptop. "There was a time when a man would have to wait weeks for a rejection to come by mail. Now the Internet delivers big, concentrated blobs of disappointment with the click of a mouse."

"So there's no point in me coming over there and trying to make you feel better?" she asked, walking towards me.

I got up. "No…but it's important to keep up appearances." I kissed her, then led her over to the couch.

Aria pulled me in for a kiss, but then backed away just as quickly.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Have you ever helped out a student?" she asked me.

I was pretty sure where this was heading, but I figured I'd let Aria tell me in her own way. Besides, I helped students all the time. Heck, I'd helped _her_ with homework assignments before.

"Is that a trick question?" I asked.

"Like, they underperformed on a test or something, but you knew that they knew the information, so you helped out their grade a little bit?"

"I get the feeling this isn't a hypothetical question."

Aria sighed. "Emily thinks that my mom helped her. Changed her grade on a test."

So that was what was going on yesterday.

"Did Emily talk to your mother about this?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said. "And my mom basically said that that's what she did."

"Well, what do you think?"

"I think that my mom's been through a lot. I mean, my stuff and you and me stuff, and all that on top of a divorce. I can see why she'd want to help out Emily. You don't look surprised."

Darn. I really had to work on controlling my facial expressions around her. She knew me too well and could read me too easily. Not good for the "surveillance" I was going to start doing.

"Surprised that your mother would want to help a student? No," I said, trying to cover my tracks.

"The vice principal wants to talk to my mom about this," Aria said. "Are they gonna fire her?"

I sighed. "They might."

But not if I could help it. Maybe I could go in and try to convince Mr. Hackett that I had something to do with this. I wasn't a teacher anymore, so I couldn't be disciplined for it. And it just might save Ella her job. Aria was right. She had been through a lot lately. And Emily didn't deserve for this to happen to her either. She needed to be encouraged, but not babied.

When Aria left after dinner, I called Ella.

"Ezra? What can I do for you?" she answered.

"I need to talk to you," I told her. "Can we meet somewhere?"

"Sure," she said cautiously. "How's The Brew sound?"

"Sounds fine," I said. "Is an hour enough time?"

"Sure," she said, and hung up.

I hoped she would actually show up. But apparently I had nothing to worry about. When I walked in, Ella was already sitting there.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello."

"I see you've discovered my other office," I told her. "This is where I see some of the students I've started tutoring." Well, if by _some_, I meant the only student…

"Are we going to have a turf war?" Ella asked.

I chuckled. "No. No, I don't think so. I wanted to talk to you about Emily." I sat down.

Ella sighed. "Emily talks to Aria and Aria talks to you."

"That's our brave new world. Why does Hackett want to talk to you?" I asked.

"It's nothing for you to be concerned about," Ella said defensively.

"I'm not just a spectator here," I reminded her.

She sighed again. "He wants to ask me about my grading practice."

"Okay, why?" I asked. It looked like I was going to have to drag this out of her slowly and painfully.

"The office received a note from a student who thinks I might be showing favoritism. Altering test scores."

"Which student?"

I was pretty sure I already knew the answer to that. Emily was such an honest person, she wouldn't have just stood by and let this happen. And I was sure she was angry with Ella for helping her grade. Emily was also a very independent person and she wouldn't want that kind of help from her teachers.

"It was anonymous," Ella said. "I've done a very foolish and shortsighted thing."

Well, yes, it was. But it was also human. It made sense that Ella would want to help Emily. She knew as well as I did what Emily had gone through recently.

"You did a very human thing," I said. "How are you going to handle it?"

"I'm going to handle it the way that Emily handled it when she found out," she told me. "I'm going to tell the truth. Or…I could blame you. Maybe if you'd come into the classroom a little earlier, I wouldn't have done it."

I chuckled. "That's an interesting approach. But if it works for you, go for it."

"You know, with everything else going on in my life, I thought that I was okay at work," Ella said. "That I had perspective. I was wrong."

Oh, Lord, did I know about keeping perspective at work and how hard it was. A memory popped up of my laying into a student about not understanding _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and completely humiliating Aria in the process. All because I was mad at Aria for walking out of my apartment the night before after I'd said some things about her parents' relationship that it really hadn't been my place to say. I'd brought that frustration to work with me the next day and acted very unprofessionally. That was probably my lowest point as a teacher.

It had also been extremely difficult to grade Aria's assignments and keep an unbiased perspective on them, and not to just give her the answers to tests or homework. Luckily for me, she'd always done very well in my class anyway.

"It's not easy to keep things separate," I told Ella.

"No, it's not," she said. "Why do you care so much about this?"

"Because Emily is my student right now too," I said. "And she doesn't deserve to be caught in the middle of this." I got up. "Goodbye, Ella."

"Goodbye."

I thought about whether or not to try to help Ella all weekend. I knew that it wasn't really my place to interfere. I'd just been overinvested in Emily's success. Was it because of Aria? I honestly couldn't tell. I knew that I loved Aria, and in a different way, I loved her friends too. I did care about what happened to them. And Emily didn't deserve to get caught up in this mess. She deserved a second chance. And I knew just how to give it to her, and it happened to involve giving Ella a free pass too.

On Monday afternoon, I dropped by the school about half an hour before it let out. I went to the front office and knocked on Arthur Hackett's doorframe.

"Mr. Hackett?" I asked. "Do you have a minute?"

"Ezra! Of course. Come on in. What can I do for you?"

"I just wanted to shed some light on the situation with Emily Fields," I told him.

"Oh?" he asked. "What do you have to do with that?"

"Well, I was tutoring Emily and helping her prepare for the exams, and I think I got a little overinvested in being her tutor. I went to Ella Montgomery's classroom after the exam and I got her to grade Emily's test in front of me to see how she did. I realize that might have looked like I was trying to get Emily preferential treatment. I'm sorry about that. It was not my intention."

"So, Ella did not in fact alter any test scores?" he clarified.

Beautiful. This was working like a charm. I knew Mr. Hackett hated conflict, and he hated making decisions. I figured that if I offered a plausible explanation, he would take it.

"No, she didn't," I told him.

"Well, perfect. Looks like this matter has been taken care of," he said, getting up and walking towards the door.

I followed him out. I wanted to explain to Ella about what I'd done.

"Mr. Hackett, I was wondering if I could give Emily another test on the same material," I asked him. "She kind of got caught in the middle of all this, and I want her to feel confident that she did the very best she could, without all of the drama and confusion."

"That sounds reasonable," he said.

"I still have all of the materials from that course, since I taught it before Ella did. I wrote up a second test on the same novel. I thought if I could give that to her, we could use her grade on that as her grade on the makeup exam."

"That is a great idea! Of all the tutors she could have had, you were definitely the best one. Only you would be able to provide this solution," he said, laughing.

We approached Ella's classroom. She and Emily were walking out.

"Mrs. Montgomery, look who came back for a visit," Hackett said as we walked up to them.

"Mrs. Montgomery, Emily," I greeted them.

"Ezra," Ella said curtly. "Uh, Mr. Hackett, you wanted to see me."

"I did," he said, "but the matter's been resolved."

"It has?" She was shocked.

"I told Mr. Hackett about my going to your class after Emily's makeup test," I told her. "I guess I just got a little overinvested in being her tutor."

"Happens to the best of us," Hackett said, sounding almost too happy to have a way out of this uncomfortable situation.

"I also confessed to getting you to grade her test in front of me to see how she did," I continued. "I realize that might look like I was trying to get her preferential treatment."

"Nonsense," Hackett laughed. "Just a little professional courtesy to, uh, help the system work better."

"Well, anyway, I feel better getting that off my conscience," I told them.

Emily looked like steam was about to come out of her ears. I was right. She was not happy with us trying to help her in this way. I would have to explain all of this to her as well. But that would come later. First, I needed to talk to Ella.

I walked into the cafeteria and deposited fifty cents into one of the vending machines to get a soda. And, just like it always did, it ate my quarters. I kept pressing the button, like that would actually do something. Ella walked in a few seconds later.

"You know, you'd think I would have remembered," I said. "This thing owes me a lot of quarters."

Ella banged her fist on the vending machine and the soda dropped. I chuckled and grabbed it. Why had I never thought of that before?

"When did you become friends with Arthur Hackett?" she asked me.

"I'm not," I said, "but I know how much he hates conflict. Almost as much as he hates making decisions. So I thought if I offered him a way out, he'd take it. And he did."

"Mm-hm."

"Yeah," I said. I wasn't really sure where to go from here.

"So now we've both lied for Emily," Ella said, finally turning to look at me.

"Yeah. Some role models we are," I said, chuckling weakly.

"And why did you do this?" she asked.

I'd known she would ask that, but I still wasn't quite sure how to respond. I still wasn't sure if it had anything to do with the fact that I was in a relationship with her daughter or not. I did know that Ella would not be happy if I told her that I wasn't sure if my relationship with Aria had played into my decision to help her. And I knew that I had partly helped her because I understood why she'd done what she did. And, before she'd found out about my relationship with her daughter, we had been friends. This was what friends did. They helped each other.

"This has nothing to do with Aria and me, if that's what you're thinking," I lied.

"Then why?"

"Because I know why you did what you did," I told her. "I'm a teacher. And we used to be friends."

Ella just smiled and nodded. Maybe there was a chance for us to be friends again at some point.

"Thank you for the soda," I said, turning to leave.

I then sent a text to Emily. I needed to make this right with her, and sooner rather than later.

_Meet me at the coffee shop. History's next._

I didn't even have to go back home first. I had the makeup test in my bag already. Emily walked in a little later looking like she was ready to spit fire.

"Hey," I said. "I was just about to get something to drink. How about you?"

"In a minute," she said angrily. "I need to talk to you." She sat down. "You know, it was bad enough when Mrs. Montgomery finished that test for me, but now she has you lying about it."

"Mrs. Montgomery had nothing to do with that," I assured her. "That was completely my idea."

"Why?" she asked.

I opened my mouth to answer, but then she continued.

"No, don't tell me. I know. You felt sorry for me. That's not what I need from my teachers."

No, it was not. She needed support and encouragement from her teachers, and the tools to succeed. Not her teachers doing her work for her.

"You're right," I told her.

"And I don't think you would have done it if you weren't with Aria," Emily continued.

"I've been thinking a lot about that, and honestly, I don't know if I would have," I said truthfully. "I do know that you got caught in the middle of something, and I'm sorry if Ella and I made things worse instead of better."

"Yeah, I hate to sound ungrateful," she said, "but I am really getting tired of everybody treating me like I was made out of glass."

I grabbed the makeup test and put it in front of Emily. "Same course, different test. Pass it now. I'll get your usual."

I got up to go to the counter. As the barista was making our drinks, I looked over at Emily. She was smiling as she filled out the test.

I wasn't quite sure how, but somehow I felt that by helping Emily and making this right for her, I'd lifted a burden off my shoulders and gotten a little more perspective on my current predicament. Yes, I still had to do something horrible for A, but now I was reminded of why I was willing to do it. It wasn't just about Aria, I realized. It was about Emily and Spencer and Hanna, too. I had come to care about all of them. I needed to try to keep them all safe, and I needed to help them find their way out of this mess and get back to being teenagers. They deserved that. All of them.


	4. For the Love of Money

_(So here's the deal. I was going to write this chapter and the next chapter that I'm currently working on as one big, long chapter, but it got too big and too long [wow, that came out dirtier than I meant it lol], so I had to break it into two chapters. That being said, I realize this chapter is a little boring, but I'm including it for two reasons. One, it includes a rather important scene that needed to be included. Two, it includes a couple of my favorite cute Ezria scenes, and I love writing those scenes into my story. So, here's this chapter. The next chapter, the one with most of the juicy stuff, will be uploaded soon.)_

Chapter 4  
_For the Love of Money_

I deposited quarters into the newspaper vending machine and grabbed a paper. More news on the Garrett Reynolds trial. Another layer of confusion to add to the already confusing circumstances. The latest news was that Veronica Hastings, Spencer's mother, had taken over the defense for the trial. Why would she do that? The evidence against Garrett was overwhelming. When she was asked that very question, all she would say was that she had done it because everyone deserved a competent legal defense.

I sighed and folded the paper up and put it in my bag. It would go with the rest of the material I had on Alison and Maya's murders. Right now, I needed to wake up and put this in the back of my mind. I had an interview for an editing job for a Webzine this morning, and I really needed this job. I needed something to do, first of all. I was driving myself crazy just doing stuff for A and working on this fake manuscript. Second, I had been tutoring students here and there, but my savings were running out fast and I didn't really want to spend much more of the money I had gotten from A. What if I needed to do something else that required a large sum of cash?

"Here is your red-eye," Aria said, coming out of the coffee shop. She handed me my coffee.

"Thank you," I said as I took a drink. Ahh…caffeine. Yes, this was what I needed. Now I could knock them dead at the interview.

Aria then put a bag in my hand. Wow, that was heavy. That was not just a pastry for breakfast.

"And the world's biggest bear claw," I said. "What's in here?"

"They had that turkey baguette on the menu that you love," she told me.

I looked inside the bag. It still seemed too heavy to just contain one sandwich. And I was right.

"Got me two of them," I said. "And roasted veggies. And pickles."

"Pickles come with," she said, a little defensive.

"Ah," I said, reaching for my wallet. "Well, let me—"

"Oh, no. It's my treat," Aria interrupted.

I really did need to do better about stocking my fridge. Aria thought that I was having difficulty making end's meet. I kind of was, but not so much. I did always have that money from A to fall back on if I needed it. I gave Aria a pointed look, trying to tell her that this was not necessary.

"What?" she said. "You'll have something for later. Okay, you have one lime in your fridge. One. It's growing fur."

I couldn't be too harsh with her. She was just concerned for me. I did appreciate that. But this wasn't right. I should be the one taking care of her. And she was in high school, for goodness' sake. She shouldn't have to worry about this.

"Thank you," I told her. "I appreciate it, but you don't have to feed me. I have my savings, my tutoring gigs. I'm fine."

"It's just a turkey—"

"It's not necessary," I interrupted, handing the bag of food back to her. "We should get going. I have an interview at 8:30."

I unlocked the car and got in. Aria reached for the door handle, but then stopped and stared at the photography studio next to us. Lucas, one of Hanna's friends, was standing outside banging on the window and yelling.

"Hello?" I called to Aria. "Still want a ride?"

"Yeah," she said, getting in the car.

When I dropped her off at school, Aria gave me a kiss for luck and told me to knock 'em dead at the interview. And between that and the caffeine, I was sure I did just that. I had a good feeling when I left the office. I was sure I would get an offer.

When I got home, I checked my mail, and there was an invitation to Jenna Marshall's birthday party, which was tomorrow night, with a handwritten note inside.

_I hope you can make it, Mr. Fitz. I would love to finally get to see my favorite teacher._

Yeah…not a chance. I was sure Aria wouldn't want to go. And, to be honest, Jenna kind of creeped me out. I knew about the relationship she had with her stepbrother and she always just seemed like she knew things that she shouldn't know. I wondered how long she had actually been able to see for. I was sure it wasn't as recent as she was saying.

Besides, I needed to show Aria that I was okay financially. So I wanted to take her to dinner tomorrow night. Somewhere nice. And I could finally give her the camera that I had been holding on to for a couple of weeks now, too.

The next morning, I did in fact get a call from the Webzine, and they did make me an offer. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. It felt good to be able to say that I was gainfully employed again. That was it. I had to take Aria out and celebrate. I called up my favorite restaurant in New Hope and made a reservation. Then I called Aria.

"Hey," she answered.

"Hey, I hope you're not doing anything tonight. I want to take you to dinner," I told her.

"Well, there is Jenna's party. I'd like to at least make an appearance."

I chuckled. Given Aria's history with Jenna, she couldn't possibly be serious. "Well, maybe we can do that. I got an invitation too. Said she wants to finally get to see her favorite teacher."

"Okay, then. What time should I be at your place?"

"Six okay?"

"Great. I'll see you then. Love you."

"Love you too," she said, and then hung up.

Aria got to my place a little early, and I was still getting ready. Her purse looked a little fuller than usual. I really hoped she hadn't decided to stock my fridge with the sandwiches she'd bought yesterday. But, knowing her, that was probably exactly what she was doing.

When I got done shaving, she was on the phone with Spencer and the fridge was open. Yep, it was more stocked now than it had been when she got here. I couldn't quite make out what she was saying, but it sounded like it was something to do with finding out why Lucas was at the photography studio yesterday morning.

"Spence, I gotta go," she said as she heard me coming out of the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" I asked. "You leave my lime alone."

"I was just going to pet it," she teased as she shut the fridge.

"We could do that. Or we could head over to New Hope and hang out before dinner."

"We're going to dinner in New Hope?" she asked, sounding shocked.

"Yeah, is that a problem?"

"No, no. I just thought that we would go somewhere local so we could stop by Jenna's party," she said. "I thought I mentioned that."

Wait, she had actually been serious about going to that party? Who was she, and what had she done with my girlfriend?

"You did, but I didn't think you were serious," I told her. "I don't have to go to that party, and neither do you."

"Oh, I know I don't. But I'd like to."

"Really? Given your history with her?"

"That's exactly what it is," she said. "History. You were the first one to mention that. Look, it's incredible what she's gone through and if she wants to include me, us, it's the least we can do to be there."

So this was my girlfriend talking. The person who was so generous and selfless, and who was always willing to give people second chances. That was one of the things I loved most about her. Screw waiting for dinner. I had to give her the Rolliflex right now. This conversation reminded me that she was worth every cent I had spent on that camera and more.

"That's it," I told her. "I can't wait."

I went to get the Rolliflex out of the saddle bag on the side of my bike. I'd figured she wouldn't look there.

"Wait for what?" Aria asked.

"This," I said, handing her the bag. "Open it."

She opened the bag. And there was the look on her face that I'd been hoping for. She was completely blown away.

"They don't make these cameras anymore and it's kind of indestructible, so it probably still works," I told her.

"But—" she protested. I knew she was thinking about the money.

"But nothing," I interrupted, brushing her hair back from her face. "You're welcome." I kissed her.

"Thank you," she said, still in shock. She kissed me again.

"Come on," I said. "Let's go to a party."

I didn't even recognize The Brew when we walked in. There were black lights everywhere and the decorations were completely different from the usual décor of the place. Jenna saw us and ran up to us. At first I was confused as to why she would know who I was, but then I realized that she had known Aria before the accident. Aria had been a part of that accident.

"Hi!" Jenna said as she approached us. "You made it!"

"I was flattered for the invitation," I told her. "We both were."

"Happy birthday," Aria said.

Jenna was staring at us, but not at our faces. That would have been understandable. No, she was staring at Aria and I holding hands. Weird. Surely she must have heard that we were together now. She must have realized that she was staring, because she went back to looking at my face after a few seconds.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to stare," she said. "I'm still adjusting and trying to match faces in reality to the ones that I saw in my head."

"No, it must be overwhelming," I told her, not wanting to seem hostile towards her. I did not want to be here, especially if she was going to be staring creepily at Aria and I for most of the evening.

"Is that Laurel Tuchman?" Aria asked suddenly. She turned to me. "She's the photographer that I took a class from last summer. She's amazing."

So that's what this was about. It was Laurel's studio that we had been standing in front of yesterday and Aria wanted to know why Lucas was outside banging on the window. Now it made sense.

"I didn't want to leave it to amateurs," Jenna said. "I wanted someone who could record every single moment." She gave Aria and I a pointed look before turning to walk away.

I wanted to roll my eyes and shake my head. No, what I really wanted to do was grab Aria and give that photographer a moment to record. It really wasn't like Aria and I being a couple was such big news anymore. Her parents already knew, and so did most of the town. So why was Jenna acting so strangely about us being together? Did she have something to do with A? Did she think our relationship was still a secret? Or was she just being creepy as usual?

"I'm gonna go say hi," Aria told me. "I'll be right back." She walked off, leaving me alone.

It took me about twenty minutes to find Aria again. And it seemed to be purely by accident. She looked like she was trying to find someone else.

"Hey," I said. "Where have you been?"

"Bathroom," Aria said. I could tell she was lying. "Everything okay?"

"You kind of ditched me back there. With Jenna. So can we go?"

"No, I don't wanna be rude. Jenna can see now. She'll know we left before the cake."

What in the world was going on here? Did Aria not want to go to dinner with me? Was she still hung up on the money thing? Was there something else going on entirely?

"We are not staying for cake," I told her. "We have a dinner reservation."

"Yeah," Aria said, sounding distracted. "Just a couple more minutes. Emily had to tell me something." She walked off again.

I sighed and went to sit at a table close to the entrance to the kitchen. In the meantime, I saw Paige get completely drunk and collapse on the floor, cutting her head. Emily and some guy I didn't know helped her up and walked her outside. It looked like they were taking her to the hospital. Well, if Emily really did have to tell Aria something, Aria wouldn't be hearing it tonight anyway.

A couple of minutes later, I saw Aria walk back into the kitchen. That was it. I had to find out what was going on. I almost ran into the waiter on my way back there.

"Excuse me," I said to him. Then I turned to look at Aria. "Aria. What is going on?"

Aria looked like a kid caught stealing from a cookie jar.

"Uh…someone said that they just put out some stuffed mushrooms," she said, trying to cover for herself.

"I don't want a mushroom. I want a dinner," I told her.

"I know," she said. "And we will leave soon."

"Are we hanging out here because you don't want to have this meal?" I asked her. "I can afford to take you to dinner, Aria."

"It's not necessary," she told me. "You just bought me an expensive camera."

How did she find out how much I'd spent on that camera? Oh, right. She had talked to the photographer. She'd probably mentioned the camera. And the photographer had probably mentioned how much something like that cost. So the money issue was at least part of it.

"What does that have to do with it?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

"You're spending money you don't have."

"I do have it," I told her. "I chose the restaurant in New Hope because I wanted to celebrate."

"Celebrate what?" Aria asked me.

"The job I got today." I'd wanted to tell her privately, over a nice meal, but it looked like that wasn't happening.

"You got that editing job? Why didn't you tell me?"

At that exact moment, three people who were all wearing colored Cat in the Hat hats all came into the kitchen.

"I thought it'd be nicer at a private table where we're not surrounded by people with silly hats," I told her.

She chuckled and wrapped her arms around my neck. Maybe this dinner would happen after all. Then Laurel walked into the kitchen and over to her equipment.

"Oh, crap!" she exclaimed.

"Everything okay?" Aria asked.

Maybe I was crazy, but it sort of sounded like Aria was expecting her to say that. Had Aria done something to that equipment?

"It's all wet!" Laurel told her. "I don't have one dry memory card. Who's been using my equipment as a coaster?"

"I could run to your studio," Aria said. "Grab you a couple more."

"I can't ask you to do that," Laurel said.

"You're not asking, I'm offering," Aria insisted. "Where are your keys?"

"You're a doll," Laurel said, handing the keys to Aria. "And you're officially hired." Then she looked at me. "Tell her to take the job." Laurel then walked out of the kitchen.

I thought I understood now, putting this conversation and the muffled bits of the conversation I'd heard Aria having with Spencer earlier tonight together. If my theory was correct, Aria and her friends suspected Lucas of something, likely to do with this whole A mess. And Lucas had something in Laurel's studio, which Aria needed to get her hands on before it left there. So perhaps Aria was the one who had gotten the memory cards wet, trying to get into the studio tonight. Well, I'd done enough shady stuff myself in the name of trying to get to the bottom of this mess. I couldn't judge Aria for doing this.

And on top of that, Aria was trying to get in good with Laurel to get a job at the studio. She'd loved that photography class so much, and if Laurel had offered her a job, I knew she would jump at the chance. I was sure that was secondary to finding out what Lucas was hiding, though.

"Okay, her studio's down the street," Aria told me. "I will be right back."

I sighed. "I'll call the restaurant and cancel the reservation."

"No, don't," she said. "Please. Just call them up, ask them to hold it for a little bit longer." She kissed me. "I will be right back," she said, kissing me one more time before running out of the kitchen.

I walked outside a moment later to call the restaurant. They agreed to hold the reservation for another 30 minutes. Luckily, they weren't that busy this evening, so it wasn't a problem. Then I saw Lucas walk out the door and head in the direction of Laurel's studio. He was going to try to get in while Aria was there. Judging from the look on his face, I was fairly certain that he wouldn't be beyond hurting her if that was what it took. I hurried to my car and drove there.

When I pulled up, Aria and Lucas were standing on the sidewalk. Aria looked a little scared and tried to walk around Lucas, but he blocked her way. I had been right. Lucas was trying to get into the studio too, and he was going to do whatever it took, even hurting Aria.

"Aria?" I said, getting out of the car. "Lucas. What's going on?"

Neither Aria nor Lucas said anything, but Lucas finally let Aria walk past him. She walked up to me, looking more than a little relieved that I'd come to her rescue.

"Did you get what you needed?" I asked her.

"Yeah," she said. "We just need to stop at The Brew quickly so I can give Laurel her memory cards and then we can head to dinner. I'm so sorry."

"All right," I told her. I wasn't going to tell her it was okay, because I was still a little upset with the situation, but I didn't want to fight with her. She had enough going on in her life right now.

After dinner, which passed quite pleasantly, I was going to drop Aria back at her place, but she insisted on spending the night with me. Not that I wasn't happy about that, but it felt like she was trying to prove something.

"You know you don't have to stay, right?" I told her as we walked in the door. "I'm not mad. You don't have to prove anything to me."

"I know," she said. "I just feel bad about earlier. And I want to stay." She kissed me.

"Okay, then," I said when she finally let me talk. "I'm gonna jump in the shower. I won't be long."

"I hope not," she said, kissing me one more time.

A couple of days later, Aria was getting ready for her first day of work as Laurel's assistant, and she was looking for the address that Laurel had given her on her phone. I thought it was a little strange that she wasn't going with Laurel, but who was I to argue?

"It's on the border of Bucks County," I told her. "I think it's like the first exit."

"Hmm?" she asked, sounding distracted. "Oh, yeah, I found it."

"Why aren't you going with Laurel?" I asked her.

"She's just weird about driving with strangers," Aria said.

If she was going to lie to me, she could at least come up with a better lie. Aria was hardly a stranger to Laurel. She had been a student, and Laurel had hired her as her assistant. But then again, Laurel did not seem to be firing on all four cylinders, so maybe she really was just being weird.

"You're not a stranger," I told Aria. "You're her assistant."

Aria's phone beeped again and she checked it instantly. I was starting to wonder if this wasn't about the job at all.

"What's up?" I asked her.

"Laurel was just double-checking that I had the right address," she said, sounding a little nervous. "How bad do you think it would be if I canceled?"

"Canceled on your first day of work? I don't think you'd get a second."

"Yeah, that's what I figured," she said, sounding a little disappointed.

Why would she want to cancel? She had been so excited about this job. She hadn't been able to stop talking about it the other night at dinner. Was she doubting her abilities?

"Wait, I don't understand," I told her. "Why would you wanna do that? I thought you were excited about this job."

"No, I am," she said. "I really am. It's just…Hanna's still really torn up over Caleb so we were all going to get together tonight to try and cheer her up."

Well, maybe the girls were planning a girls' night to take Hanna's mind off things, but I had a feeling that there was more to it than that.

"Well, your friends know it's a great opportunity for you. Besides, we've gotta pool our resources together. I think we're on our last package of ramen," I teased.

Aria chuckled weakly.

"What is this really about?" I asked her.

She just looked down, not saying anything. I had been right. She was doubting her ability to do the job.

"Aria, you wouldn't have been hired if she didn't think you were up to the task," I said.

Then I noticed the Rolliflex still sitting where Aria had left it the night I'd given it to her. I had an idea. I grabbed the camera and started it up.

"Hey, look up," I said.

Aria looked up and saw me holding the camera.

"No, don't," she protested, sticking out her hand to block the lens.

"Boom," I said, and then snapped a couple of pictures.

"Ezra, seriously," she protested.

"Okay, your turn," I said, handing her the camera.

"What?"

"I want to remind you that you know what you're doing," I told her. "So, come on. Take a picture of me."

Aria took a couple of shots, but I could tell she still wasn't feeling it.

"Are you happy?" she asked.

"No, keep going," I said. I was determined to get her excited about this job again. She needed something fun in her life. She deserved it. She was a teenager, for goodness' sake.

"A little _Thinker_ action," I said, posing like the statue.

Aria started snapping photos again. And I could tell she was starting to enjoy herself.

"Oh, you look gorgeous," she told me. "Okay. Come on, give me something else."

"Running in place?" I said, posing again.

Aria snapped a few more photos. "Come on, you gotta give me more."

"This?" I asked sticking my tongue out at her and putting my hands on either side of my head.

"That's awful."

"So tell me not to," I said, posing again. "Loves the camera." Then I grabbed the newspaper that was sitting on the table and stuck it in my mouth for a few more shots.

"Ooh," she said, snapping a few more pictures. She set the camera down and walked up to give me a kiss.

"Feel better now?" I asked her.

She smiled. "Yes, I do. Thank you for that."

"Anytime," I said, kissing her again. "Lord knows you give me enough encouragement about my job situation. I'm just returning the favor. Hey, I'm going to go jump in the shower. I have a meeting about a writing job a little later."

"Okay," she said.

As I was turning off the water in the shower, I heard a drawer shut.

"Hey, Ezra, I'm going to have to run," she said, sounding a little…off.

Had she found the money? Was the drawer I heard shutting the sock drawer? Crap. Looked like I would need to come up with an excuse for why I had all that cash lying around.

"Wait, right this minute?" I asked, grabbing my robe and putting it on as I walked out of the bathroom. "Not so fast. At least give me a proper goodbye."

Aria kissed me quickly. "Bye," she said, practically running out the door.

"Bye," I said after she shut the door.

Yep, she'd found the money. I was sure of it. I wasn't upset about it. She was bound to find it sooner or later. We were practically living together after all. She was probably looking for something and had opened up the drawer to try to find it. I was just worried about how I could explain this without telling her how I'd really gotten the money. So what kind of excuse could I give that would explain me having thirty-five grand in cash in a sock drawer?

Maybe I could tell her that I'd sold my grandfather's car. No, that wouldn't work. Who would pay for something that expensive in cash? Well, maybe…I could say that he'd asked to pay me in cash so he could have a break on taxes. That would make sense. And really, I couldn't come up with anything better. I guessed that was going to be the story I was going to stick to. The trick would be getting my family to go along with it if I needed them to. Well, since I'd pretty much disowned my family, the chances of them needing to corroborate this were slim to none.

I was lying on the couch watching an old western movie on TV when Aria got back from work.

"Hey," I said, setting down my beer and getting up.

"Hey," she said, sounding a little deflated.

"Did everything go okay at work today?" I asked as I gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"Yeah," she said, smiling. I could tell it was fake. Then her face changed entirely. "No. Not at all, actually. I dropped two light meters, I switched out a wrong lens, and I punctured a bounce."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"But what happened?" I asked. She'd been so confident this morning after our little photo shoot.

"Well, I was a little distracted. By what I found in your sock drawer."

So I'd been right. Time to put on the performance of the century now. I just hoped I could make this believable.

"Oh," I said, trying my best to sound nonchalant. "Is that why you ran out of here today?"

"Yeah," Aria said. "I didn't know what to say."

"I can see how that might look pretty bad."

"Ezra," she said, more serious now, "where did that money come from?"

Show time. "I sold a car my grandfather left me. A '67 Jag. I was hoping to restore it one day, but now someone else has it and I have a sock drawer with no socks."

"And they paid you in cash?" Aria asked, clearly still skeptical.

"Yeah, I let the guy pay me in cash so he could have a break on taxes."

"Okay, so why didn't you just tell me that?"

Crap. I hadn't thought of that part. Why wouldn't I have just told her that I sold the car?

"Well, I didn't think you'd be going through my sock drawer," I said, trying to buy myself a few seconds to think.

"I wasn't going through your sock dr—"

"Because it's embarrassing!" I interrupted. Not bad for having to think on my feet. "Six months ago, I was a professor, and now I'm answering want ads for Webzines and reusing coffee filters."

Aria didn't look upset anymore. Well, she did, but I could tell that she was no longer upset at me. She was upset _for_ me. She came to sit down on the couch.

"Can I join you?" she asked.

I scooted over to give her room and pulled her in close, kissing her head. I turned for one moment to look at the drawer, but then quickly turned back around. I didn't really want to be reminded of why that money was really there.


	5. A Blast From the Past

Chapter 5  
_A Blast From the Past_

The rest of the week passed quietly, which was rare these days. No fighting about money, nothing from A (at least on my end—since Aria was still keeping this new round of A terrors a secret from me, I wasn't sure whether she had heard anything). That was, until Friday afternoon. I got an email from a blocked sender again.

**Picture Perfect**

Picture perfect? Did A know about the camera and Aria's new job? Or was this about the surveillance cameras I'd ordered, which still hadn't come in yet? Well, it seemed that I was about to find out.

_Security cameras are fine, but what will you do until you get them? You're meeting with another member of the team on Wednesday afternoon at 4. I suggest you have a plan. If we find out that you're stalling us, it could be very bad for a certain someone…  
-A_

Wonderful. I had exactly five days to figure out how I was going to spy on these girls until I got these cameras and they were up and running. And honestly? I didn't have a clue. I'd already tried the Peeping Tom route and that hadn't gone well at all. What else was there? I wasn't a computer hacker, so I couldn't hack into their cell phones or anything like that. A would just have to be patient and realize that the person they'd asked to do this job was maybe not the best person for the job. It wasn't my fault that A had asked the wrong person to do this.

Sunday morning, I was still feeling like I was in over my head and had no plan whatsoever. And I was not prepared for the person on the other side of the door when I heard the knock. I thought maybe Aria had forgotten her key, or that it was Mrs. Rosenthal having locked herself out for the millionth time. But it was none of the above. It was my mother.

"Hello, mom," I said, completely shocked.

"Ezra," she said as she walked in without an invitation.

My mother did not sit down. She simply looked around my apartment as if she was disgusted by it. For a moment, I thought Aria had left an undergarment lying out somewhere or something, and I had to double check the bed and the couch. Nope, all clear there. My mother did see a framed picture of me and Aria and it looked like it was taking every ounce of strength she had inside her not to cringe.

"Mom, what… What are you doing here?" I asked her.

"Well, the family is endowing the Osgood with some of your grandparents' collection, and I've been named the honorary trail boss," she said. "I thought I would pop by, since I was in the neighborhood."

"Oh," I said as I headed to the kitchen to make coffee.

I could read between the lines. She was hoping to see Aria here. I was kind of glad that Aria was running later than usual. I was hoping maybe I could get my mother out of the apartment before she got here. But no such luck. The key turned in the lock and Aria walked in.

"Okay, Marine, drop and give me 20," Aria said as she shut the door.

My mother just stared at her for a minute, as if Aria joking with me was completely unacceptable. Well, maybe to her it was. It was what people who were in love did, and I wasn't entirely sure that my mother had ever experienced that before. But then I realized what it really was. It wasn't the joke that was unacceptable. It was the fact that Aria had a key. My mother hadn't realized that Aria and I were this serious.

"Hello," my mother finally said.

"Hello," Aria said, shocked.

"Aria," I said, coming out of the kitchen, "come in and meet my mother."

"Hi," Aria set the box of donuts she'd brought on the table and went to shake my mother's hand. "It's such a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Fitz."

"Fitzgerald," my mother corrected her. "Ezra likes to truncate the name for some reason, but call me Dianne."

"Dianne. I'm Aria."

"Yes, you are. I'm so glad to finally meet the mysterious girl with the lyrical name."

"Mysterious?" Aria asked, looking at me. I smiled.

I was surprised at how well Aria was doing with my mother. But then again, Aria had charmed me in about 30 seconds. Why would I have thought she would do anything else with my mother?

"Well, elusive," my mother explained. "Ezra's kept you to himself all this time. I didn't want to pass up this opportunity."

"There's a benefit at the Osgood Museum and my mother is honorary trail boss," I told Aria.

"Oh, that's great," Aria said enthusiastically.

"Yes, it is," my mother said, looking a little disgusted for some reason. Then she smiled her fake smile again. "There's a reception at the museum tomorrow night and I'd love it if you both could come."

"That's kind of short notice, Mom," I said, hoping to get out of it. I wanted my family to have as little to do with Aria as possible.

"Indulge me."

"I love the Osgood," Aria said, still charming as ever.

"The women have you outnumbered," my mother told me.

"Okay," I said. There was no way out of this now.

I wished Aria had kept her mouth shut. But then, I'd never told her about my mother and how cruel she could be. And she was trying to make a good impression.

"Perfect," my mother said. "I'll leave an invitation at the desk." She turned to Aria. "So glad I caught you."

"Oh, do you have to go?" Aria asked. "We could have some coffee."

Oh, no we could not. I wanted my mother out of my apartment five minutes ago. I was not about to have her stay for coffee and have the chance to terrorize Aria.

"Actually," I said, "we've got that thing. Do you remember?"

"Right," Aria caught on immediately. "I completely forgot about that."

"I don't want to disturb your Sunday," my mother said. "We'll talk tomorrow night."

"Well, it's nice to meet you," Aria said.

"You too." My mother shook Aria's hand again and turned to leave. I followed to shut the door behind her. "I will see you tomorrow night," she said, kissing me on the cheek.

"Yeah, bye," I said, all but slamming the door behind her. I had to resist the urge to wipe my cheek where she'd kissed it.

"Fitzgerald, huh?" Aria asked.

"If you want to be a writer, you don't want an albatross like that around your neck," I said, spouting the same story I'd told a million times.

I didn't want to tell Aria the real reason for me shortening my last name and moving away from home. She didn't need to know about Maggie. Well, maybe she did at some point. But not right now.

"Right," she said. "And what if your last name was Hemingway?"

"Then I would be Ezra Hem," I teased.

Aria chuckled. "Sounds like you're clearing your throat."

"You don't have to go to this thing tomorrow night if you don't want to," I tried. I hoped she would take the out.

"Are you kidding? I do. The Osgood and your mom?"

Okay, so that hadn't worked. Time to try a different tactic.

"Did you notice how she never sat down?" I asked, hoping to get her to realize that my mother was not as charming as she seemed to be.

"I noticed her diamonds," Aria said.

"Well, in the divorce, she got custody of the jewelry."

"What does she know about us?"

"Well, she knows that I love you," I said as I wrapped my arms around Aria's waist.

"That's a good start," she said. "What else?"

"I told her that we didn't start seeing each other until after I left Rosewood High."

"You lied to your mother," she mock scolded me.

"Wasn't the first time," I said, smiling.

I kissed her and prayed that my mother would not send her running for the hills tomorrow night.

The next night, I was even more nervous than I had been before. I went up to the window to get the invitation and left Aria in the foyer for a moment. When I got back, she looked so calm and ready to take on the world. How could she do that? I was almost sweating bullets.

"Look, it's not too late to ditch this and find a miniature golf course," I said as I walked up to her.

"Lyle and Frances Springer," Aria said, reading from the poster for the benefit.

"Yep," I said. "My grandparents."

"As in Springer Preservation Fund? Springer Endowment for the Arts?"

"Guilty," I said as I took her hand and walked up to the guard to hand him the invitation.

I led Aria inside, hoping to indulge my mother by making a quick appearance and then leave.

"Ezra," Aria said as she grabbed my arm to stop me.

"Yeah?"

"All this stuff belongs to your family?"

"Yeah," I said. I really should have told her about all of this sooner. This shouldn't have been how she found out about my family's fortune.

"So your family doesn't have money, your family has _money_."

I led Aria off to the side so we weren't right in the center of the room. "Look, I should have figured out a way to tell you about this, but it's kind of hard to work into a conversation."

"You were cutting off a lot more than a name when you went from Fitzgerald to Fitz," she said, almost like a question.

If she only knew. I was cutting off my mother and her cruelty. I was cutting her off from ever being able to do what she had done to Maggie to another girl. But again, I wasn't going to bring Maggie up now.

"All this stuff?" I said. "It used to be in my grandparents' house and the only people who ever saw it were my family and the people they paid to clean up after them. And they were fine with that. But I'm not."

"I just always thought that you never talked about your family because you didn't want them knowing about me," Aria said, sounding shocked.

She thought I was ashamed of her? After all this time? Did she not realize that she was the only thing in my life that had any meaning anymore? Yes, I'd had some hard knocks because of being with her, but I wouldn't have done a single thing differently. Aria made me the happiest man on the planet, and I wasn't about to let my mother get to her and try to ruin what we had.

"I wasn't keeping you away from my family," I told her. "I was keeping my family away from you."

Aria gasped and shook her head, looking like she was trying to process everything I'd just told her.

"Are you angry?" I asked.

"No," she said slowly. "No, I don't think so. But I think you owe me something for all those ramen noodles." She wound her arms around my neck. "I think we can negotiate, though."

"Okay," I said, leaning in to kiss her.

When I pulled back, I noticed my mother staring at us. Well, she could stare all she wanted. I refused to apologize for the way I felt.

Then I saw Wesley out of the corner of my eye. I hadn't realized that he would be here. The one person in my family that I didn't hate was my brother. And I kind of needed to talk to him and tell him about lying to Aria about selling the Jag, just in case it came up. It was his car after all.

"I'm going to go get us some drinks," I told Aria. I kissed her on the cheek before walking towards Wesley (and, as it happened, the bar).

"Ezra?" Wesley asked as I walked up to him.

"Hey, Wes," I said, trying to sound casual.

"I didn't know you would be here tonight," he said.

"Well, Mom showed up at my apartment and she and Aria kind of backed me into a corner. I couldn't get out of it."

"Aria's here?" he asked, sounding excited. "Where is she? I want to meet her."

"Soon," I said, "but not tonight. I don't want to bombard her with every member of my immediate family all in one night. She's got enough to deal with, having to talk to Mom tonight. I'm just hoping I still have a girlfriend by the end of the evening."

Wesley chuckled. "Yeah, you're right. But soon."

"Soon. Hey, I'm headed to the bar to get us some drinks," I told him. "Walk with me."

"Absolutely," he said. "Lead the way."

As we were walking to the bar, we ran into our mother.

"Ezra, Wesley," she said. "Glad you two found each other. Now you'll have someone to talk to tonight, Ezra."

Wait, what? I wasn't planning on leaving Aria's side after getting our drinks. But apparently my mother had other plans.

"Yes, I'm glad I bumped into Wes," I told her. "It's been too long."

"It really has," he said. "Come on, dude. I need a drink." He put his hand on my shoulder and led me away from our mother.

After I delivered Aria's drink to her, she asked me if she could take some time to look at everything by herself. Because I didn't want to tell her that I was afraid of what my mother might say to her, I had no good reason to say no. I walked back off to find my brother, but was careful not to let her out of my line of sight, just in case I needed to step in and rescue her.

I was starting to realize that maybe this wasn't the venue to talk to my brother about the lie I'd told Aria. Too much was happening, and too many people could hear.

"Hey, Wes," I said when I found him again. "I need to talk to you about something, but not here. Can you come to my apartment on Wednesday morning around 10?"

"Absolutely," he said. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine," I lied. "Just need to get your take on something, but I don't want Mom hearing us talking about it."

"Of course. I'll be there with bells on."

I turned to look at Aria. She was talking with my mother. Aria turned to walk away, but my mother stopped her. I wanted to go up and save Aria from what I was sure was a very upsetting conversation, but before I could, Aria walked off. I excused myself from Wesley and tried to follow her, but she turned a corner, and by the time I got to where she was, she had disappeared. What the hell had my mother said to her?

Half an hour later, I had been over the entire exhibit, and there was no sign of Aria anywhere. I'd tried calling her, but she didn't pick up. She'd probably put her phone on silent. It was then that I found my mother.

"What did you say to her?" I demanded as I walked up to her.

"What did I say to whom?" she asked me, as if she had no idea what I was talking about.

I wanted to smack that smug look right off her face. But this was a public setting, and I didn't want to cause a scene. I just wanted to find my girlfriend and get the hell out of here.

"I can't find Aria," I told her.

"Oh. Is she gone?"

"She was talking to you the last time I saw her."

"Maybe it's past her bedtime?"

Could my mother be any more obvious about her disdain for Aria? Really. But this was over the line.

"It's astounding that you can do things like this and still not understand why I want nothing to do with this family," I told her.

"I really don't know what you think I've done," my mother said, still feigning ignorance. "I had a lovely chat with the girl. I don't know, maybe she just felt out of place."

I was sure that wasn't what had made Aria so upset that she had completely disappeared. But one thing was for sure. I certainly felt out of place. I had wondered constantly how I was even related to this woman at all, and this was just further fuel for that fire.

"You can endow all the museums you want," I told her, "but you're not fooling anybody. There's not a generous bone in your body."

I walked outside and found Aria sitting on the front steps. She looked like she'd been crying.

"Aria?" I said, walking up to her and sitting down beside her.

"Hey," she said as she turned to look at me. A stray tear was on her cheek.

"Look, I don't know what my mother said to you, but I'm so sorry," I told her. I wiped the tear away and kissed her forehead.

"Can we just go?" she asked. "I really don't want to talk about it."

I stood up and held out my hand. "Of course. Let's get you home."

Aria was completely silent for the entire car ride home. It was killing me, not knowing what my mother had said that had upset her so. One thing was for sure, though. I would never let her near my mother again. Not if this would be the result. I couldn't stand seeing Aria like this. When I dropped her off at her house, she didn't say a word or even kiss me goodnight as she got out of the car.

I couldn't get a hold of her the next day, though I tried. I called, left messages, sent texts, but nothing. Had my mother threatened her in some way? Told her that she was never to speak to me again, like she had with Maggie? This was driving me even crazier than I was already going trying to come up with a solution for my predicament with A.

On Wednesday morning around 9, I got another email from A.

_Be at the lookout point at 4:00 sharp. A blue car will pull up. That is the person you will be meeting with. Remember, you'd better have a plan for surveillance until the security cameras are up and running, or your photographer won't be taking pictures for much longer.  
-A_

Oh, crap. What the hell was my plan? I guessed I'd just tell A that I would try to pay very close attention to anything that Aria or her friends said, and watch them as much as I could while they were out and about. I was sure A would understand that I just wasn't skilled enough to watch outside their houses without being caught. Well, probably not, but again, it was not my problem that A had assigned this task to the wrong person.

At 10:00 sharp, there was a knock on my door. Wesley was here. Just to add to the confusion and chaos.

"Hey," he said as he walked in. "You look like hell."

"Good to see you too, Wes," I said.

"What's going on?" he asked me. "Everything isn't okay, is it?"

No, it was not. It was the farthest thing in the world from okay. I was sure my brother would go along with the Jag story if he needed to, but he would need to know why. And, honestly, I needed to talk about it. Wesley didn't know anyone in this scenario except me, and he would have no one to tell. I decided to risk it and trust him with the truth.

"No, it's not," I said as I sank down onto the couch. "It's not okay at all. Listen, Wes, if I tell you something, you have to promise not to say anything to anyone."

"Of course," he said. "But why?"

"Because it's not safe even for you to know, but I need you to do something for me. And I can't ask you to do it without telling you why it's so important."

"Dude, you're scaring me. What's going on?"

"You're not nearly scared enough," I told him. "By the time I'm done, you'll be terrified out of your wits, just like I have been every day for the past five months."

And I proceeded to tell him everything. I told him about that godforsaken email I'd gotten while I was up at our mother's house five months ago. I told him about what A had made me do, moving Maya's body and digging up Alison's grave, and how A kept threatening to hurt Aria if I didn't do exactly what they told me to. And then, once I had told him everything about the situation I was in, I told him about the lie I'd told Aria about how I'd gotten the money in my sock drawer and I begged him to go along with it.

Wesley was silent for a long time after I was done telling him.

"Say something," I said. "Please."

"I'm not sure what you want me to say," he told me. "I mean, of course I'll go along with the story for you, but…wow. You must really love this girl. You wouldn't have done all of this for Maggie."

"I do love her," I said, a sob forming in my throat. "More than I can even comprehend. I've never felt this way about anyone before. And I can't stand the thought of anything happening to her. Either because of this A freak…or because of Mom."

"What does Mom have to do with this?" Wesley asked.

"She doesn't have anything to do with this," I told him, "but to add to my list of problems right now, Aria isn't returning my calls or texts. She hasn't said one word to me since I dropped her off at her house after the museum."

Wesley chuckled weakly. "Well, given what we know Mom is capable of with your girlfriends, I'm sure Aria just needs a little time to recover from whatever Mom said to her. But this thing with A. God, I wish I could help you somehow."

"Going along with this stupid story about the Jag is helping me," I told him. "It's helping me keep Aria safe from this psycho who is trying to use me to hurt her. It's too dangerous for her to know anything until I've figured out who this person is and turned them over to the police."

"Wait," he said. "What if you really did sell the Jag? Or what if I sold the Jag and let you take the money? It would give you enough to take Aria somewhere away from all this."

Oh, God, that sounded tempting. And I wished it could be that easy. But this was about Aria's friends, too. Aria would never leave them to face this monster alone. Besides, I knew A would find us, wherever we went. And before that, A would probably hurt Aria's friends just out of spite.

"I wish it was that simple," I told Wesley. "But it's not. It's not just Aria that I'm protecting. It's her friends too. And I know A will find us, wherever we are. That's not an option."

I looked at the clock. Crap. It was already 3:15. I only had 45 minutes to get to my meeting with A's messenger.

"I'm sorry, Wes, but I have to go. I have to meet someone who knows this A person about my next assignment for them," I told him.

"Look, you know I'm here for you, right?" Wesley asked me. "If you or Aria need anything at all, I'll do whatever I can to help you, no matter what."

"Thanks, Wes."

I got up to go grab a pen and pad of paper off of my desk to leave a note for Aria in case she came, but instead I caught a glimpse of her coming up to the apartment out the window. She looked nervous. Crap. I had to get my brother out of the apartment. And I had to come up with a good story fast as to why I would have to run out so quickly once she got up here.

"Crap," I said.

"What is it?" Wesley asked me.

"Aria's coming. And I have no idea what to tell her about why I have to leave within the next 10 minutes. Or why you're here."

"Tell her you have to buy back the car and I came to help you. Act upset because the guy is trying to get double what he paid for it, and now you'll have to borrow money from us. And tell her you have to meet the guy right now."

If there was one thing Wesley was good at, it was spinning a good story on the fly.

"Thanks, bro," I said. "You really are a master of weaving lies."

"Anytime," he said with a chuckle. "We should probably be fighting when she gets up here. You have to make it believable."

"Sure. What do I start with?" I asked.

"I'll start," he said. "Just follow my lead." Then he raised his voice to the point where Aria would be able to hear it from the hallway. "You can't pretend this isn't happening."

"No," I said, raising my voice too. "But I can kick you out of my apartment."

"It's great you have principles and all, but you're only hurting yourself," he continued.

"I'm serious," I said, walking over to open the door for him. "Get out."

"Don't be an idiot," Wesley said as he walked out the door. "Take the offer."

"I'm not gonna—" I started to say, but then stopped when I saw that Aria was standing there waiting for us to be done.

"You Aria?" Wesley asked her.

I wanted to introduce them. I wished Aria could know that this person who she'd never even met was someone who would do anything for her and be there for her through thick and thin, no matter what. But telling her that would mean telling her everything. And I couldn't do that. Plus, I was pretending to fight with him right now.

"Not now, Wes," I told him, giving him a pointed look.

"Dude, introduce me," he said, giving me a pointed look right back. He was still putting on a show, and I needed to too.

"_Dude_," I said. "Keep walking."

Wesley turned and walked away.

"And that was?" Aria asked me.

"That's Wesley," I told her. "My brother."

"What offer was he talking about?" she asked as she followed me inside.

"Nothing," I grumbled.

"Ezra, I could hear you two yelling from the stairwell. Clearly you're upset. What—?"

"I meant it's nothing you need to worry about," I interrupted.

"How much money is your mom going to pay you to break up with me?" she asked suddenly.

Wait, what? My mother had said a lot of things about Aria, and about Maggie too for that matter, but she'd never offered me money to break up with either of them. No, she'd reserved that for paying them to leave me once I'd gotten my roots in too deeply. Wait… Oh, my God. Was that why Aria was so upset the other night?

"Why would you ask that?" I asked her, wanting her to tell me that herself.

"Because she offered it to me first."

"The other day at the museum, my mother offered you money to break up with me?"

"It's what I came here to tell you," Aria said.

So that was why she hadn't answered my messages. She was upset, and she was probably processing whether she wanted to be with someone when their family could be so cruel. I could have strangled my mother with my bare hands right at that moment.

"I'm sorry," I told Aria after a few moments of silence. "I'm just processing."

"Well, can you process out loud?" she asked. "Why was your brother here?"

And, once again, it was show time. Thank you, Wesley, for feeding me this story, because after the bombshell that Aria had just dropped, I would not have been able to come up with anything on my own.

"He came to help me buy back the car I sold," I said.

"Why?"

"It's complicated."

Well, if you called the world's biggest lie complicated. I hated lying to Aria. So much. But, I had to remind myself, it was much more dangerous for her to know the truth.

"I can keep up, Ezra," she insisted.

"Technically," I continued, "the Jag wasn't mine to sell. My grandfather left it to me, but because I disowned my inheritance, it defaulted to my brother. About a month ago, I needed money, so I called Wes and he said I could sell the car and keep the cash."

"Okay, so…"

"So…" Crap. Why would I have to buy it back now? Um… A-ha! "My mother found out. She's now claiming it's a sentimental family heirloom." Damn, that was close.

"Oh, yeah, because she is just so sentimental," Aria said.

After what had happened at the museum, I knew Aria would believe pretty much anything I told her about my mother. I glanced at the clock. If I didn't leave right now I would be late for my meeting with A's crony.

"I have to buy the car back," I told her, "and now the guy is asking for double, which means I have to borrow from her. I have to meet somebody about the car."

"Right now?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said.

I hated leaving her right now, after what she'd just told me about my mother. I wanted her to know how sorry I was that my mother had treated her so horribly. I wanted her to know that even if my mother had offered me money to leave her, I would die before taking it. But I had to go meet this person, whoever it was, right now. I kissed her on the forehead and then walked out the door, praying that she would forgive me.

I made it to the lookout point two minutes early, but only because I had broken almost every major traffic law in the book getting there. Sure enough, right at 4, a blue car pulled up. Through the tinting, all I could see about the driver was that they were wearing a black hoodie. Of course. Typical A gear. I cautiously walked up to the car and got in.

"So what's your plan?" the hooded figure asked.

I could have sworn I recognized that voice. I decided to take a chance.

"Toby?" I asked.

The person in the hoodie turned to look at me, and sure enough it was Toby Cavanaugh.

"Toby," I repeated, shocked. "How could you do this to Spencer?"

Shit. Talk about opening mouth and inserting foot. I'd just stuck my entire leg in my mouth. I prayed I hadn't just completely blown my cover.

"How could you do this to Aria?" he asked, giving me a pointed look.

That look was very hard to read, but something told me I could trust him. I decided to take the chance. Maybe he was doing this for the same reason I was: to protect the girl he loved.

"I'm in this for the same reason you are," I told him.

"To keep her safe?"

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. He was on my side.

"Yes," I said. "If this is the only way to protect Aria, then I guess this is what I need to do."

Toby sighed too. "I'm so glad to finally get someone else on my side here. I put on a brave face, but all of this is scaring me out of my wits. Not for myself so much, though. Mostly I'm scared for Spencer."

"I know. Me too, for Aria. So where do we go from here?"

"We help each other," Toby told me. "And we do everything we can to keep the girls safe."

"Right," I said. "So…speaking of helping each other, any thoughts on what I can do about surveillance? Because honestly I haven't a clue what I'm going to do until the cameras get in. I ordered them in the first place because I'm a terrible spy. Aria almost caught me hiding in her bushes one night."

He chuckled. "I was horrible at that too, at first. I'll come up with something for now, and you and I will both pass information back to Red Coat until we get the cameras up and running. Speaking of, where are you going to hide all those monitors when you do get them?"

"My family has a cabin in the woods that no one has used in years. I'm going to set them up there. Wait…Red Coat? Who's Red Coat?"

"Red Coat is the one in charge," Toby explained. "The real A. None of us know who she is."

Wonderful. More hooded and cloaked figures to try to identify.

"Okay, and how do I pass information on to this Red Coat?" I asked.

Toby grabbed a piece of paper that had some writing on it from the console. He also grabbed a pen and scribbled something else on it.

"Here's a secure email address where you'll send your information. I just wrote my phone number on there too. It's encrypted, so it's safe to use. You might want to invest in one of those, too. It'll make it easier for us to talk."

"What in the hell did we get ourselves into?" I asked, not necessarily directed at Toby.

"What did the girls get themselves into?" he replied.

"And how do we get them out of it? How are we supposed to figure out Red Coat's end game and stop it if we don't even know the rules of the game we're playing?"

Toby put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "We'll figure it out. If you and I stick together, we can do this. We can stop Red Coat and keep the people we care about safe."

I sighed. I needed to leave. It was getting late, and it looked like another trip to a shady electronics store in Ravenswood was in the cards tonight, this time to buy an encrypted cell phone.

"I should get going," I told Toby. "Looks like I need to go to Ravenswood to buy a new phone. I'll text you when I get the number."

"Okay," he said. "Be careful."

"You too," I said as I got out of the car and shut the door.

Once I was back in my car, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. It seemed like things were finally starting to work out in my favor. I had someone else on my side now. And my brother would help me too, if I needed it. Speaking of Wesley, I realized that I should call him and thank him for earlier. I went to grab my phone out of my pocket, only to realize that it wasn't there. I checked the pockets of my hoodie and the console and glove box, and it was nowhere to be found. It couldn't be in my back pocket, because I would have felt that when I sat down. Crap. I must have left it at home in my rush to get out the door.

When I got back from Ravenswood, one encrypted cell phone richer, Aria was in the hall outside my apartment.

"Good, you're back," she said. She sounded upset.

"Hey. I left my phone inside," I told her.

"I know. I called you for a ride and Wes picked me up."

I should have been upset with Wesley for finding a way to introduce himself to my girlfriend without me being there. But I knew why he'd done it. He'd told me that if Aria or I needed anything, he was there for us. He was trying to show me that he'd meant what he said. And he was trying to get her to trust him, too, in case a situation ever arose when she did need his help.

"He told me about Maggie," Aria continued.

Great. As if I didn't have enough problems right now. Now I had to tell Aria about Maggie, too. Well, this certainly wasn't a conversation I wanted to have in the hallway of my apartment building. Why would Wesley have said anything about Maggie to Aria? What the hell was he trying to do here?

"Come inside," I said.

"I can't."

"You can't?"

"I need to know what happened," Aria said.

"Well, I can't believe that Wes would tell you that in the first—"

"He thought that I knew, Ezra!" she interrupted. "He thought that we were the kind of people who told each other things, and so did I. So I need to hear the truth from you, right now."

I opened my mouth to speak, but I wasn't even sure what to say. I shut it again. Aria whimpered, trying to keep back a sob, and started to run back out the door. But I couldn't let her leave. Not like this.

"Wait, no," I called, chasing her down. "Aria. Aria, wait." I grabbed her arm to stop her.

Aria turned around to face me. "You got somebody pregnant in high school?" she asked.

"It was the summer after graduation," I clarified.

"Maggie. What happened?"

This was easy enough. Aria wasn't necessarily mad at me. She was upset that she had to find out from my brother, and she just needed to hear the truth from me. That, I could handle.

"My mom happened," I told her. "She and I always saw things differently, for as long as I can remember. But I was scared. Maggie was scared. We thought that she could help. I told her about Maggie, and she said that she'd handle it. Eighteen years old and pregnant and here's this woman telling you how it's gonna be?"

"Your mom offered her money?" Aria asked. I was sure that was easy enough for her to believe, since she'd experienced the exact same thing.

"She was determined to keep me on track," I said, "and that didn't include me becoming a father at eighteen."

"Wow."

"That's one word for it. I was going to go to Vassar, but then that suddenly became too close to home, so I transferred to Hollis and I became a Fitz."

"And Maggie?" Aria asked.

"There were terms involved with the money," I told her. "They included never talking to me again."

Aria nodded, looking like she was still trying to process everything. Right now, even more than earlier this afternoon, I needed her to understand how appalled I was by my family. I needed her to understand that I would cut all ties with them completely before I would let them come between us. And most of all, I needed to know that she was okay.

"Please come inside," I begged. "Please."

She sighed. "Okay," she said, following me into the apartment.

As soon as I'd shut and locked the door, I turned around and grabbed Aria, pulling her close. She sighed and wrapped her arms around me. We just stood there like that for what seemed like an eternity before I finally spoke.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, pulling back to look at her face. She looked like hell, like it was more than just this Maggie bombshell that was upsetting her.

"Not really," she said.

Well, at least she was being honest. I led her to the couch and pulled her down beside me, not letting her go for a second. I pulled her into an even tighter embrace and kissed her forehead.

"Look," I said, "I understand if you're too upset right now to talk about this, but I would really like to know exactly what my mother said to you the other night."

Aria sighed shakily, sounding like she was trying to keep back tears. I pushed her up a bit, so that I could look her in the eyes.

"Hey," I told her, brushing her hair back from her face. "It's okay to cry. It's okay to be upset. You don't have to be ashamed of your feelings with me."

As if my permission to cry was what she'd needed, she started sobbing. I pulled her in close again, letting her just cry into my shoulder. Feeling Aria's tears wet my shirt, knowing that my mother was the cause, made me want to throttle my mother with my bare hands.

"Shh," I soothed her, stroking her hair and kissing her head. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry, Aria. I should never have let you agree to go to that museum with me. I should have told you the truth."

Aria sniffled, trying to get herself under control.

"You don't have to tell me right now," I told her. "If you're not ready to tell me, it's okay."

"No," she said, taking a few breaths to calm herself. "I need to get this out. First of all, your mom had done her homework on me. She knew about Mike's arrest record, my parents' divorce, my father's affair with Meredith. And she knew about us. About when we really started seeing each other."

I really wondered if my mother would leave any girl I dated alone. Was anyone good enough for me in her eyes? Paying one girl to leave me after I'd gotten her pregnant, and offering to pay another girl to leave me just because she didn't like the age difference between us and her family's history? For the millionth time, I wondered how I could possibly be related to Dianne Fitzgerald.

"Okay," I said. "I didn't realize that she'd looked into your history, but I can't say it really surprises me."

"And then she told me…" Aria choked up again for a moment. "She told me…that she wasn't going to stand by and watch me ruin your life, and that I'd ruined everything that you wanted for yourself and she rubbed the fact that you gave up teaching because of me in my face and that I was living in a fantasy world, being with you. That was when she offered me the money. 'There could be real world compensations in your ending this.' That's what she told me." The tears fell again.

My mom really was a piece of work. Who was she to tell anyone what was best for me and my life? And so what if Aria and I were living in a fantasy world? We were happy there.

"Aria," I said. "You know none of that is true. I don't regret any part of the time you and I have spent together. I don't regret giving up teaching."

"But you wouldn't have had to do that if you weren't with me," she sobbed. "She was right about that."

"But that doesn't mean that she's right about all of it. And she's very wrong about the most important part," I told her.

"What do you mean?"

"You have done the opposite of ruin my life, Aria," I said. "You have made my life worth living. If I could go back and do it all again, I wouldn't change a single thing. I love you."

Aria smiled through her tears, and I pulled her in for a kiss. Then inspiration hit. I was pretty sure I knew exactly how to make her feel better, but unfortunately, it required me to get up for a moment.

"I'm going to go grab something," I told her as I wiped some tears from her cheek. "I'll be right back."

"Okay," Aria said, wiping her other cheek.

I got up and went to my bookshelf, pulling out the book of poetry that had my poem, _B-26_, in it. This poem was what had made Aria come back to me. And I knew it would remind her of how I felt. I also went over to the CD player and put the CD that had the famous B-26 song, "Happiness," inside, and hit play. As I sat back down on the couch, I opened the book to page 22 and handed it to her.

"Remember this?" I asked, pointing to my poem. "This is how I felt about you after only a few weeks. Even then, I didn't regret a single moment of our time together. I would have done anything for you then, and I still would now. You are my life now, Aria. I will not let my mother ruin what we have together. It's the most important thing in the world to me, and I will fight to the death for it."

Aria smiled again, this time a little bigger. "I love you so much." She pulled me in for another kiss. "B-26?" she asked when the song came on.

I chuckled. "'Happiness.' You are my happiness. Don't ever forget that." Wow, that sounded cheesy.

But apparently it worked. Aria kissed me again, and then got up and led me over to the bed. And, just like that, our troubles and her sorrow were all but forgotten for a little while.

Later on that night, Aria and I lay in bed, cuddling and listening to the Fray CD on repeat.

"So exactly what is the going rate for a breakup these days?" I teased. I kissed her neck and tightened my arm around her waist.

She giggled. God, I loved that sound. "I'm not entirely sure. I didn't really stay around to nail down the finer details." She turned around to face me. "But no amount of money would be worth giving this up. I've tried that before, if you'll recall, and it made us both miserable." She kissed me. "I'm not going there again."

"Good," I said, pulling her even closer. "I don't ever want you to." I kissed her again. "But no more stocking my fridge, okay?"

"Deal," she said, giggling again and laying her head on my chest.

I didn't ask her what I wanted to ask her, what I'd been having to stop myself from asking her for months. I wanted to ask her to marry me. I even had a ring already. I'd had it since before I'd gotten fired from Hollis. It was completely insane, but I wanted it so much. I didn't want to ever stop feeling the way I felt when I was with her. But even if she said yes right now, it would have been a very long engagement. She had to finish high school first, and turn eighteen so her parents couldn't say anything about it. And we had to get ourselves out of this A mess first. If I married Aria now, Red Coat would know that I was playing her. Well, we were both still young. We had time.

When I woke up the next morning, I was alone in the bed, but Aria had left a note on her pillow telling me that she'd gone out to get breakfast and would be back soon.

I was in the bathroom when I heard Aria return. I walked out into the kitchen and saw her sitting at the table next to a pile of half a dozen bagels and a tub of cream cheese. She looked upset.

"Wow," I said as I walked up to the table. "You brought a lot. What are these, cranberries?" I picked up a bagel that looked like it had some sort of fruit in it.

"Jalapenos," Aria said, sounding deflated. Yep, she was upset. I guessed she'd had time to mull over what we'd talked about last night.

"Ugh," I said, putting the jalapeno bagel down and putting a plain one on a plate. I went over to the couch and sat down, catching a glimpse of the clock. It was already 8:30. "Aren't you gonna be late?"

Aria was quiet for a moment before speaking. "How much would you have to pay someone to make them fall off the face of the earth?"

Yep, she was still thinking about Maggie. I couldn't really say I blamed her. I probably would have been thinking about it if she'd told me that her parents had paid some guy to leave her alone after getting her pregnant.

"Are you talking about—?"

"Maggie," Aria finished for me. "Clearly, your mom must have given her a lot."

"I would imagine," I said. I really wanted to be done talking about this. I'd thought we'd smoothed things over last night, but apparently I had been wrong.

"You don't know? You really never asked Maggie?"

"I asked, but she never returned my phone calls or emails. I looked for her for months, Aria. But eventually I just had to accept the fact that maybe she didn't want to be found."

Aria scoffed and shook her head. "Why didn't you just tell me about her?"

So that was what this was about. It wasn't really about what had happened with Maggie. It was the fact that I hadn't told her about Maggie without being forced into it.

"Because she was part of a past that I was trying to forget," I told her. "And when we first met, I didn't want to reveal every skeleton in my closet."

"Okay, but you could've told me about her when I found out about Jackie. Ezra, we've been together for over a year now."

No, I couldn't have told her then. Having been engaged to someone who broke it off was completely different from having had my mother pay off the girl I'd gotten pregnant to never speak to me again. Telling Aria about Maggie would have meant telling her about my mother, too, and that was a conversation I'd been hoping to avoid entirely. But for some reason, I felt like I couldn't say that to Aria right now. I didn't want to bring up my mother again. So I did the stupid, immature thing. I turned it back on her.

"And you took a very long time to tell me about Jenna. And A," I said.

"This is completely different than that," Aria said. She grabbed the cold bagel off of my plate. "Do you want this toasted?"

I wanted to be done with this, and I knew Aria had get to school. So if I went and took a shower right now, Aria would be gone when I got out. It was wrong to leave things like this, I knew, but I didn't know what to say to make things right with her right now.

"Actually, I think I'll eat it later," I said. "I should probably hop in the shower." I headed off to the bathroom. As I was turning on the water, I heard the apartment door slam. Aria was gone.

I knew I couldn't put this conversation off forever. I knew I needed to tell Aria the real reason why I never told her about Maggie. It wasn't because I didn't want her to know. It was because I hadn't wanted to scare her off with the story of what my mother had done.

But I had another issue to deal with now. Hearing what my mother had said to Aria at the museum that night had thrown me for a loop. And now I was worried that after my mom had sent her packing with a much fuller bank account, her life had somehow spiraled out of control. It wasn't that I wanted to re-kindle the flames of the old relationship. Far from it; I would never leave Aria. But I did just want to re-connect with her for a bit, just to know how she was doing. I just wanted to know that she was okay.

So, once I got out of the shower and ate the bagel that Aria had crammed into the toaster, I went to my computer. And quickly discovered that apparently my mother was a lot better at finding people than I was. But, after about an hour, I found her on Facebook. Luckily for me, she had never married, so her last name was still the same, but man, were there a lot of Maggie Cutlers. The picture on her profile made me sure that I had the right Maggie Cutler, though. The profile was private, but it seemed like I could still send her a message. And, finding out that she lived in Wilmington, Delaware, I was able to look up her phone number in the white pages.

I wanted to call her immediately, but I couldn't do that without talking to Aria first. She was already upset enough about this situation. I didn't need to make it worse by calling Maggie without her knowing about it.

Later that night, Aria and I were lying in bed watching a movie. Normally, the silence while we were watching a movie was comfortable, but tonight, you needed a machete to cut through the tension in the room. I paused the movie and got up to get a glass of water.

"Are you making popcorn?" Aria asked.

"No, but I could," I said.

"No, no, I just thought that's why you were getting up."

I couldn't take this silence anymore. I hadn't told Aria about finding Maggie yet. We'd had an uneasy, unspoken truce this evening and I didn't want to rock the boat. And at this point, it was either tell Aria that I'd found Maggie or have her leave for the night and hope that I could tell her tomorrow. I opted for the easy way out.

"I'm actually kind of tired," I said. "Is there any way we could finish this up another night?"

"Are we still fighting without actually fighting?" she asked. So the tension wasn't just one-sided, apparently.

"No," I told her. We weren't still fighting. I just didn't want to tell her what I needed to tell her right now.

"Look, I'm so sorry for the way I acted this morning. Your past is your past. And I should've respected that. I shouldn't have pushed you so hard. Look, I'm okay—"

"I found Maggie," I interrupted. I had to tell her sooner or later, and now I realized that what I really wanted wasn't to avoid this situation; I wanted to resolve it. And that could only come by telling the truth.

"What?"

"She lives in Delaware."

"Did you call her?" Aria asked.

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Well, I wanted to talk to you first," I told her. "I wanted to make sure you were okay with it. She's a part of my past, and I've moved on. But you and Wes bringing this up over the past couple of days has really gotten me thinking about her, and I just want to see how she's doing."

Aria walked over to me and grabbed both of my hands. "Ezra, I'm not going to tell you who you can and can't talk to. I trust you. If you say that Maggie is a part of your past and you've moved on, then I believe you. If Wes telling me about this and you having to explain it is bringing up old memories and feelings that you need to deal with, then deal with them. I'm not going to stop you."

I smiled. Aria really was wise and mature beyond her years. Just another entry on the very long list of things that I loved about her. I let go of her hands so that I could caress her face.

"Listen, there's something else I need to say," I told her. "I'm sorry I didn't say this before. I'm not sure why I didn't, but I need to say it now. I never told you about Maggie because telling you about her would have meant having to tell you about my mother, too. In some way, I thought I was protecting you from my mom by not telling you about her."

Aria grabbed my hands and pulled them down from her face. She was silent for a moment before speaking.

"I understand where you're coming from, Ezra," she said, "but I don't need protecting. What I need is the truth."

"I know. And I'm so sorry. I should have told you about Maggie and about my family a long time ago. You shouldn't have had to find out because my mother and brother came crashing into your life. No more secrets, I promise."

Well, that was a lie. I was keeping a much bigger secret from her right now. But this secret really was to protect her not just from cruelty, but from physical harm. And I planned to tell her everything once the danger was past. So this wasn't the same.

"Okay," Aria said. "No more secrets. Unless they include something like…plans for your birthday?"

I chuckled. "Hopefully nothing too extravagant. Call me crazy, but with everything going on lately, I'm not much in the mood to celebrate."

"Well, you're just going to have to get over that. But I just thought I'd cook dinner and bake you a cake and we could stay in."

"Sounds great. Have I told you lately how much I love you?"

"Well, yes, but it's always nice to hear."

I smiled. "Let's finish the movie. I'll make popcorn."

Aria kissed me. "Okay."

The next day, I had to do some actual work. I was a little behind on editing for the Webzine, so most of my day was devoted to that. But I couldn't stop thinking about Maggie, and the thought of calling her or sending her a message kept eating at me all day.

Aria called me around 9 that night. I was glad. It was weird, but having her here the past few nights had kind of spoiled me. I missed her tonight.

"Hey," I said, yawning. All this worrying was exhausting.

"Hey. You sound wiped."

"Yeah, I kind of am. I've been working most of the day," I told her.

"Well, I hope you're almost done," she said. "You're not allowed to spend your birthday like a zombie because you didn't get enough sleep tonight."

I chuckled. "I am almost done. Don't worry, I will be my usual charming self tomorrow."

"Good. So…I do kind of want to surprise you just a little tomorrow. Can you make yourself scarce until around 7?"

"I think I can manage that."

"Good. I'll see you tomorrow. I love you."

"Love you too," I said as I hung up.

I didn't want to be worrying about Maggie tomorrow while Aria and I were celebrating my birthday. Maybe if I just wrote an email to her, it would help. At least then I would have reached out. Yes, that was a good plan.

I finished up the little bit of editing I had to do and submitted it. Then I wrote the email, basically just telling Maggie again how sorry I was for what my mom had done to her and asking her to forgive me. I also told her that I wasn't trying to rekindle any old flames or anything, but that it would bring me peace of mind if I knew that she was doing okay. I explained what my mother had done to Aria and told her that after hearing that, it really got me worried that my mom had done something much worse to her.

It took me the better part of three hours to word it just right. But then, for some reason, I couldn't hit the send button. What if I didn't want to know? What if Maggie had hit rock bottom after my mom sent her off? What if… What if she hadn't had the abortion like my mom wanted her to? What if I had a kid that I didn't know about? Was I really ready to deal with that? Was I ready to be a father?

And this wasn't just about me. I knew Aria wasn't ready to be a stepmother. Finding something like that out could kill our relationship. I would want to be a good father, and Aria would try to be supportive, but she was only seventeen. She wasn't ready to be a parent. And I would never force her into that. No…I couldn't send that email. I wasn't ready to know the answers to my questions.

I checked the clock. It was almost 2 in the morning. I had to get to bed. I still tossed and turned for a while. It seemed only moments after I had fallen asleep that Aria was crawling up on my bed and kissing me on the cheek.

"Hey," she said. "You're still sleeping?" She was holding a bouquet of wildflowers.

"Am I?" I said, trying to knock the cobwebs out of my head.

"Happy birthday."

I rolled over and sat up. "Ugh," I said as I tried to stifle a yawn. "Give me a second. I'll be more charming when I'm awake. I was up late. Really late."

"Why?" she asked. "When we got off the phone, you said you were almost done with work."

"Yeah…I got sidetracked. I wrote an email to Maggie."

"Oh," she said, sounding shocked.

Maybe she wasn't expecting me to actually tell her that. But I'd promised her no more secrets. I intended to keep that promise.

"No, I didn't send it," I told her.

"Why not?"

I sighed. "What if her life spiraled out of control after my mom sent her off?"

"Wait, two days ago you had assured me that Maggie was ancient history, you had moved on," Aria said. "Why are you suddenly assuming the worst? What happened?"

"Hearing what my mother did to you at the museum really threw me."

"Hey. You're not spending your birthday like this. So just call her and see how she is."

I sighed again. "I can't. It's not fair for me to crash into her life. I just…wanna know if she's okay."

Aria kissed me on the cheek. "It's sweet that you're so concerned for her. She'll appreciate the gesture. Just call her. I know if it was me you'd be telling me the same thing right now."

She was right. I would be telling her the same thing if the roles were reversed. I would want her to have peace of mind.

"Thank you," I said. "Maybe I will call her, once I've woken up a bit."

She glanced at the clock. "Oh, crap. I'm running late. I've got to get to school. Remember, make yourself scarce between 3 and 7. You can't know everything about tonight."

I chuckled. "Deal. I'll see you tonight." I kissed her quickly. "I love you."

"Love you too," she said as she got off the bed and went to the kitchen to put the flowers she'd brought in water. "See you tonight."

I went back to sleep for a little bit after Aria left. Then once I woke up again, really woke up, I grabbed my laptop and headed out the door. I would work at The Brew today since Aria wanted the apartment to herself this afternoon.

I kept looking at the number that I had programmed into my cell phone. I just stared at it, as if it was foreign to me. But finally, I hit the call button. The second it started ringing, I wanted to hang up, but I knew that I couldn't. This horrible sinking feeling was not going to just go away on its own. I had to make sure that Maggie was okay.

"Hello?" Maggie answered on the third ring.

Yes, this was her. And God, did hearing her voice bring back memories.

"Ma—Maggie?" I asked.

"Yes. Who's this?"

"It's Ezra. Ezra Fitzgerald." I choked out my full last name. I hadn't told her that I'd changed my name to Fitz.

"Ezra! Hi! Wow, talk about a blast from the past," she said.

I chuckled. "No kidding. Listen, I know this sounds strange, but I've had some stuff happen in my life recently that kind of brought up old memories, and I just wanted to give you a call and see how you're doing. I hope that's okay."

"Absolutely. It's great to hear from you. I'm doing great. How are you?"

"I'm fine. I was teaching for a while, but I gave that up. Now I'm writing full time, and editing for a Webzine from home. I have an amazing girlfriend and I'm really happy. What are you up to these days?"

That was what I really wanted to know. I wanted to know about her, not tell her about me. Because, honestly, my life was a hot mess at the moment.

"Well, I got my Master's in Education and I'm teaching first grade here in Wilmington. I live alone at the moment, own my own home. I'm great."

"That's great to hear," I told her. "You, uh, seeing anyone?"

Why the hell had I asked her that? I wasn't remotely interested in getting back together with her, so why did I care?

Maggie chuckled. "No, not right now. Listen, Ezra, I'd love to catch up more, but there's an open house at the school tonight and I'm already running late. I'd love to talk more sometime soon though. Call me any time."

"Okay, I understand. I'll talk to you soon."

"Hey, am I losing my mind or is today your birthday?" she asked suddenly.

I was shocked that she remembered. But then we had dated for most of high school.

"You're not losing your mind," I told her. "It's my birthday."

"Well, happy birthday. I'll talk to you soon. It was really great to hear from you, Ezra."

"It was good to talk to you, too. Bye." I hung up.

Words couldn't describe how relieved I was. Maggie was all right. My mother hadn't ruined her life. Thank goodness.

I checked my watch. It was 6:30. I decided to head back home. Now that I knew Maggie was okay, I kind of did feel like celebrating my birthday. I sent Aria a text letting her know that I was on my way and then packed up my laptop and papers.

I walked in and smelled home-cooked lasagna and chocolate cake. And…my brother's cologne. Sure enough, when I turned to look in the kitchen, not only was Aria there, taking something out of the oven; Wesley was helping her. And they'd hung a cheesy happy birthday banner. What was he doing here?

"Hello," I said.

"Hi," Aria said, smiling.

"The birthday boy, man, whatever," Wesley said.

"Wes dropped off a gift for you, so I invited him to stay for dinner," Aria explained.

"Yeah, hope that's cool," Wesley said. He sounded a little nervous.

"No, glad you're here," I said. "The more the merrier." What could be better than celebrating my birthday with my two favorite people in the world?

Aria walked over to me. "So now you want to celebrate?"

"I sort of do," I told her. "I called Maggie. And she's doing great."

"What does that mean?" Wesley asked.

He sounded a little off, but maybe it was just hearing that I'd talked to Maggie. He'd known her back when we were dating. I was sure this was awkward for him to talk about.

"She's got a Master's in Education, has a good job, owns her own home, lives alone, and she's really happy," I told them.

"She told you that?" Aria asked, as if she didn't believe me.

"We didn't talk more than five minutes, but honestly, that was enough," I told her. "I'm incredibly relieved. I'll take a shower and then we can celebrate." I kissed Aria, and then walked off to the bathroom, clapping my brother on the shoulder as I passed him.

Aria really was a great cook. And I could tell she and Wesley were getting along well, which I was happy about. I really did want her to like him. I didn't care about the rest of my family, but my brother was important to me. And he was someone who Aria could count on, too, although she didn't know that. Maybe she'd figure it out herself. I hoped she would.

After dinner, Wesley went to grab the cake and brought it over to the coffee table. He lit the candles, and after they sang "Happy Birthday" to me, I blew them out immediately.

"Did you even make a wish?" Wesley asked me.

"I don't need to," I told him truthfully. I turned to look at Aria. "Everything I want, I've already got."


	6. Everybody Scream

_(Sorry this has taken me so long, guys. I've been super busy with work and then I got really sick and could barely look at a television screen, let alone write. But anyway, here's my latest chapter.)_

Chapter 6  
_Everybody Scream in Our Town of Halloween_

I'd never really liked Halloween. Dressing up in costume, handing out candy to little kids who needed one more lollipop like they needed another hole in the head, having teenagers do dumb shit just because they could. But for some reason, I felt like this Halloween was going to be different. And for once, I'd actually made plans. Well, Aria had made them. We were going to go on the Halloween ghost train that was being sponsored by The Brew. I wasn't really looking forward to it, but I knew Aria was excited enough for the both of us.

But then all of my plans had been derailed. I'd just hung up with the camera shop in Ravenswood, who had called to tell me that all the surveillance equipment I'd ordered had finally arrived. They told me that normally they didn't do this, but they didn't have enough space to keep it there, so I needed to pick it up immediately.

This presented a problem for two reasons. First, I didn't have time to go to my cabin tonight, which would mean I'd have to find somewhere to store this equipment until I could set up the cameras and the transmitters and then get the receivers and monitors set up out at the cabin. Second, I knew Aria was going to be extremely upset with me. I'd have to come up with a really good reason why I was canceling on our plans for tonight.

But before I could worry about that, I had to call the one person who might be able to help me find somewhere to store all of this surveillance equipment. I pulled out my encrypted cell phone that had exactly one number programmed into it.

"Hello," Toby answered on the third ring.

"Toby, hi. It's Ezra. Can you talk?"

This was awkward. I'd never had to call him before. I wasn't quite sure what to say to him.

"Yeah, I can talk. What's going on?" he said.

His voice was filled with nothing but concern and willingness to help me, I could tell. He really was a sweet kid, and he wanted to take down Red Coat as much as I did.

"Look, here's the thing," I said. "I just got a call from the shop that sold me all the surveillance equipment. It's all come in, and they need me to pick it up today because they don't have the space to store it. I have a plan for where I'm going to set up all of the receivers and monitors, but I don't have time to get there today. Do you know of somewhere I could stash all of this stuff for a few days until I can get it all set up?"

Toby chuckled. "Sure. I was wondering when you were going to get around to asking me about that. You can use my apartment in Ravenswood for now. I'm back here for a while so I don't mind a bunch of cameras and monitors being in my living room. Do you have enough room in your car for all of it?"

"Thank you," I breathed, relieved. "Yeah, I think I can fit it all in my car."

Just then, I got a text on my regular cell phone.

_You're stalling us, Ezra. Maybe it's time you learned a lesson.  
-A_

"No, no, no." The words were out of my mouth before I was even aware I'd said them.

I was sure I knew what kind of lesson Red Coat had in mind. And there was nothing I could do to stop it. I had to get this camera equipment tonight. And what better night than Halloween to teach me this lesson? Whatever the A team had planned for Aria, I was sure it would happen tonight, when there was nothing I could do to protect her.

"Ezra, what is it?" Toby asked me.

"Nothing," I lied.

"Nice try. What just happened?"

I sighed. Maybe he could help somehow if he knew.

"I just got a text," I told him. "It was from someone on the A team. They said that I was stalling you guys and that it was time I learned a lesson."

Toby sighed. "I was wondering when they were going to make a move. Mona's been saying that Red Coat isn't happy with how long it's taking you. I wonder what kind of 'lesson' Red Coat has in mind."

"I'm sure it has something to do with Aria. And I'm sure it's going to happen tonight. What better night than Halloween to try to hurt her? Whoever's doing it will be in costume so there will be next to no chance of getting caught. And I can't be there. I have to go to the electronics shop tonight and get all of this stuff. So I have no way to protect her."

My voice broke at the end, and a few tears snuck out of my eyes. I didn't know what to do. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. If I did what I wanted to do and stood the electronics shop up and went with Aria tonight, Red Coat would know that I was playing her. Aria would be safe for tonight, but then we would both have targets painted on our backs, and short of hiring private security to follow her everywhere, I couldn't protect her 24/7, especially not if I was always looking over my shoulder. But if I went to the camera shop tonight, I had this horrible sinking feeling that I might not see Aria again at all.

Toby was silent for a moment before responding. "You need to get this stuff from the shop. Red Coat will know you're playing her if you don't."

"I know," I said.

"Look, I'm going on the train tonight with Spencer. I'll do everything I can to protect Aria tonight. I can't promise to look after her every second, but I'll make sure she's safe to the best of my ability."

"Thank you again, Toby," I said. "I don't know what I would do without you. I feel like I'm so far in over my head that I don't even know where the surface is anymore."

"You're doing all right," he assured me. "But I'm glad to have a friend on the inside too. Meet me at The Brew in fifteen minutes so I can give you my key."

"See you there," I said as I hung up.

Oh, thank the Lord! It wasn't quite as good as me being there to protect Aria, but I trusted Toby implicitly. I knew that he would do everything he could to keep Aria safe.

And now, to find a solution to my slightly smaller problem. How was I going to explain canceling on Aria at the last minute? It would have to be something good, and something she would believe. Well…she knew that I was still looking for writing gigs. Maybe I could tell her that I had a meeting about a job that had to happen tonight. Yes, that was good. But what kind of job? It would have to be something big, like book big. And something that someone would pay me for before it was published. A-ha! I could tell her that someone wanted me to ghost an autobiography for them. Yes, that would work. That would work quite nicely.

I headed out the door to meet Toby at The Brew. There was something else I had to ask him for too, but I hated to do it. And I didn't know how he would be able to. I needed his help getting all of these cameras set up. He worked in construction, so he had tall ladders and other equipment for working up high. And this seemed like it would be a two-person job. Well, maybe he at least could get someone else in this sinister organization to help me.

He was already there when I arrived, waiting for me.

"Hey," he said casually, a reassuring smile on his face.

"Hey." I tried not to let my anxiety leak through in my voice…and failed miserably.

Toby held out his key. "It's 1175 MLK Jr. Drive, apartment 47."

"Thanks again," I told him as I put the key in my pocket. "Can I get you a cup of coffee or something? There's something else I have to ask you."

"I'm good, thanks. But you can ask me anything you want."

"I think I might need some help getting this set up. Or at least some equipment. Like ladders and stuff."

"Way ahead of you," he said. "I was planning on offering my services anyway. But let's just get through tonight first, okay?"

"Okay. You're a good friend, Toby. The girls are lucky to have you looking out for them," I said as I turned to leave.

"Back at you," he said before he walked off in the opposite direction.

I checked my watch. I had just enough time to head home and face the music with Aria before I had to head to Ravenswood.

"Hi," she said as I walked in the door.

"Hey."

"You almost got a preview of coming attractions," she told me.

I heard what Aria had said, but my brain just couldn't process it. I was too distracted. I was too scared for her safety to be able to concentrate.

"Costume for tonight," Aria said when I didn't answer, pointing to the bed.

And, once again, it was show time.

"We have a problem with tonight," I told Aria.

"What sort of problem?"

"I can't go," I said as I sat down at my desk.

"Ezra," she whined. Yep, she was upset.

"I know. I've got a meeting in Philadelphia about ghosting an autobiography. Actually somebody worth writing about this time. It would pay for all of next year, but it has to be tonight."

"Aw, crap."

"Yeah, crap indeed," I said. "But I will make it up to you."

I just hoped I would get that chance.

"I know you will," Aria told me. "I know. I just really wanted you to see my costume."

"Well, I can see it tomorrow."

"Playing dress-up for your man on Halloween is one thing. You do it any other night, you end up on an afternoon talk show."

I chuckled. At least she wasn't too mad at me. She wouldn't be joking with me if she was. I quickly checked my watch. I didn't have to leave right this second. And I knew how much she'd wanted to surprise me with whatever this costume was. She had refused to tell me what she was dressing up as; she just kept saying I would love it. Besides, this might be the last chance I would get…no, I couldn't let myself go there. Aria would be fine. Toby was going to be there, and the rest of the girls weren't about to let anything happen to her without a fight either.

"Depends on the costume," I told her. "And besides, I've got a little bit of time now."

I pulled Aria into my lap and went to kiss her, but we were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Trick or treat," came the call from a group of little kids.

"Great," Aria groaned.

"Early birds," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Night of the Living Preschoolers." She got up to hand out the candy.

When she shut the door, I pointed to the bed, where her costume was lying, still in its garment bag.

"So, are you going to avoid the afternoon talk shows and play dress up for me now?" I teased.

Aria smiled. "Yep. You're going to love it." She grabbed the garment bag and her purse and disappeared into the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, none other than Daisy Buchanan from _The Great Gatsby _was emerging from the bathroom. Aria had done an amazing job with her costume. It looked so authentic, I could have sworn she was in costume for a movie.

"Wow," was all I could say.

"Speechless, huh?" she teased. "It must be better than I thought it was."

I walked up and wrapped my arms around her waist. "It's amazing, Aria. I wish I could go with you and be your Gatsby tonight."

"You _are_ my Gatsby," she said as she wound her arms around my neck. "And you always will be."

I smiled and kissed her, trying to squash the feeling that _always_ might not be very much longer.

A few hours later, I was pulling up to the electronics store in Ravenswood just as they were getting ready to close. The guy in the shop recognized me immediately when I came in.

"The camera equipment, right?" he asked.

"Yep," I said, trying to keep my growing anxiety about all of this out of my voice.

I pulled out the envelope of cash I'd brought to pay the other half of the bill for this stuff.

"It's ten grand that I owe, right?" I asked.

"That's right," he said.

I handed him the envelope. "You can count it if you want."

He took the envelope and counted the cash inside, then wrote me a receipt.

"Hey, how's your girlfriend liking that Rolliflex you bought her?" he asked me.

"Wow, I can't believe you remember that," I told him. "She loves it. She actually just started a job as an assistant to a local photographer, so she's getting more chances to use it."

"That's awesome. Do you want to pull your car around back? I can help you get all of this stuff loaded up."

"That would be great. I'll be back there in a couple of minutes."

Half of me was scared that the guy just wasn't going to show up out back. He had my money now, plus twenty thousand dollars' worth of high-end surveillance equipment. It wouldn't have surprised me if he'd decided to just cut and run. He could be in another state by the time anyone figured out what he'd done.

But when I pulled around the corner and into the back parking lot, he was there waiting, with the back door open and a stack of surveillance cameras in his arms. I popped the trunk.

"I really appreciate the help," I told him.

"Oh, not a problem. Honestly, I have selfish motives. I'm ready to get the hell out of here and go celebrate Halloween with my girl," he told me as he set his first load of stuff in the trunk.

I wished I could be doing that right now. I wished I could be on that train with Aria, protecting her.

Almost on cue, my cell phone buzzed. It was a text.

_Better keep your eye on this one, or she'll be gone soon…  
-A_

There was a link. Almost without thinking, I pressed it.

Holy shit! It was Aria on the Halloween train. She was dancing to the band at the front of the crowd, looking like she was having a great time. Good, Toby and Spencer were both right behind her, and Hanna was next to her. She was safe for now. But I was sure there was a reason why A had sent me this video feed, and it wasn't to show me that Aria was safe.

I tried to get out of the feed so I could help this nice kid load my car, but it wouldn't back out. I was stuck watching this video feed. But this kid couldn't see that. I stuck the phone in my pocket and went inside to grab a load of monitors.

It took us no more than fifteen minutes to get the car loaded. Everything fit, but just. Every conceivable spot that wasn't the driver's seat had something on it. I thanked the helpful kid once more and headed off to Toby's loft. As soon as I was in the parking lot of Toby's apartment building, I pulled the phone out again.

Now Aria was sitting by herself on the train having a drink. Some guy walked up to her and started talking to her, and apparently asked her name, because she tried to tell him a couple of times and then gave up and wrote it in the frost on the window. At first I got a little jealous because she seemed to be responding to his advances, but then I realized who it was. This guy was Adam Lambert. So that was the mystery live entertainment. Okay, I was no longer jealous. He was openly gay and just schmoozing with the crowd during his break.

As soon as Adam Lambert walked away, someone wearing a Queen of Hearts costume walked past Aria, waving their cape over her drink. It looked like they'd put something in her drink while her head was turned. Almost immediately, she turned around and grabbed her drink again, playing with the straw. She started to raise it to her mouth.

"No, no, no, Aria! Don't drink that! No!" I was yelling at my phone before I even realized it, like that would actually do something. Like she could actually hear me.

But of course, she couldn't hear me and she took a sip from her drink.

I knew that it wouldn't be long before Aria passed out. And after that, who knew what Red Coat had in store for her? I had to at least go to Philly and meet the train at the end of the line. But before I could do that, I had to unload this car as fast as humanly possible.

Thank God Toby's apartment was on the bottom floor. It took what seemed like forever to get all of this equipment into his living room as it was. I couldn't imagine if I'd had to take stairs or even an elevator.

Forty-five minutes later, I was done and getting ready to head to the end of the line to meet the train. And then I realized that I was not dressed as though I'd just been to a job interview. I hadn't actually planned on seeing Aria tonight. And even if I had been dressed appropriately, I'd just spent the better part of an hour unloading boxes from my car, so I needed a shower desperately.

It was a long shot, but I decided to check Toby's closet. He and I were about the same size, and I didn't think he'd mind me borrowing a suit in this case. If I could find a suit here, I could also take the fastest shower I'd ever taken in my life here too.

By some miracle, Toby did in fact have a suit in his closet, complete with a tie. It looked close enough to something that I would actually wear that I didn't think Aria would question it. I headed into the bathroom and found a spare towel under the sink. I showered quickly, then donned the suit, which, as I'd expected, fit me almost perfectly.

I took a deep breath and checked my phone before heading out the door.

And I screamed out loud at what I saw. There was a large wooden crate on my screen that was moving back and forth, like someone was trying to get out of it. I didn't have to have any sound on this video to know that Aria was in that crate and trying to get out. She finally managed to knock the crate over.

Damn it! I ran out the door and almost forgot to lock it in my haste, but remembered at the last minute. It was a good thing that by some miracle there weren't many cops out, because I'd never driven anywhere so fast in my life. On my way there, I pulled out my encrypted phone to try to get a hold of Toby.

"Spencer, what's going on?" he answered, but the tone in his voice told me that he knew it was me and just couldn't say so.

"It's Aria," I said, my voice quivering as I tried to keep back tears.

"Spencer, we're doing everything we can," he told me, and I could tell that he was trying to keep his voice level too. "Is there anything else you know that might help us?"

So he and the rest of her friends knew that she was missing. At least that was something. I took a couple of shaky breaths, still trying not to start crying. I couldn't let myself go there right now. I had to keep a level head, for Aria. I wasn't going to be much use to her if I gave over to my emotions and my fears.

"Red Coat sent me a text with a link in it. Now my regular cell phone is stuck on a video feed I can't get out of. I saw someone in a Queen of Hearts costume put something in Aria's drink. Then I had to leave my phone for a bit while I unloaded my car. Now all I know is that she's stuck in a crate somewhere and trying to get out. I don't know where the crate is, but it has to be on the train somewhere."

"Okay, we'll keep looking," he told me.

"Thank you, Toby. I'm heading to the end of the line to meet the train. I'll see you all there," I said.

"Okay."

"Oh, I borrowed a suit from your closet. I hope you don't mind. I told Aria that I had a job interview tonight, so I couldn't show up wearing jeans and a t-shirt. And I used your shower."

I wasn't sure how I remembered to tell him that in the midst of everything. Maybe it was some sort of mental defense or something. Remembering stupid small details so that I couldn't focus on the big picture.

"That's fine," he said. "I'll see you soon, Spencer." And then he hung up. My one connection to that train was gone.

I checked the video feed again as I was driving, looking back and forth between my phone screen and the road. And screamed out loud again. There were two people there moving the crate toward the door of the car. They were both dressed in costume, of course, so I couldn't see who they were. But one of them opened the car door and started pushing the crate even closer towards the edge.

And then my phone flashed the low battery signal. I hit ignore, but I knew that I only had a couple more minutes before my phone would die completely. The two costumed villains moved the crate further and further towards the edge of the car, and finally started pushing it out the door. But they didn't push it out completely. The last thing I saw before my phone shut down was them walking away with the crate teetering halfway out the door of the car, ready to fall any second.

"NO!" I screamed at the dead phone. I threw it violently on the floor of the passenger side.

Now I had no way of knowing what would happen to Aria. I would just have to wait for the train to get to the end of the line and find out. Then the tears came. I couldn't help it. I couldn't stand thinking about the very real possibility that I would never see her again. I would never hold her again, never kiss her again, never feel the warmth of her in the bed next to me again.

I almost hit a lamp post in the parking lot at the train station as I pulled into my parking space. I got out of the car in a flash, only remembering to lock the door at the last minute, and ran up to the platform.

"Are you meeting the Halloween train?" an elderly gentleman in a train station uniform asked me.

I wiped the last of the tears out of my eyes.

"Yes," I choked out.

"It might be a while. There was an accident on the train. Someone's been hurt."

"An accident? What kind of accident?" I asked, but I had a feeling I already knew the answer. Someone had been killed, pushed off the train in a wooden crate.

"They wouldn't say. Just that they needed to stop the train and wait for the police to question everyone before they came to the end of the line."

I turned around and ran back to my car as fast as I could, not even bothering to say goodbye to the attendant. I had to find somewhere where I could get on the grass next to the tracks. I couldn't wait for hours to find out about Aria, no matter what the news was. I would just have to drive next to the tracks until I found the train.

It only took me about half an hour to find the train. I parked far enough away that the cops wouldn't see my car and ran up to the first available officer.

"Excuse me, officer?" I asked, more panic leaking through in my voice than I had wanted.

"Yes, sir?" he answered, making sure not to let me walk past.

"What's going on here?"

"There's been an accident here, sir. Someone's been killed."

"Who? Who was it?" I asked, sounding even more panicked than before.

"I'm not at liberty to say, sir. Now, if you'll kindly wait over there until we've finished questioning the passengers," he said, pointing off to the side, where a few other people were waiting.

How could I get past him and on to this train? I didn't know any officers in Rosewood well enough to tell them that I was a personal friend of someone in law enforcement. And even if I did, that wouldn't get me on the train. And telling them that my girlfriend was on the train wouldn't garner much support for my cause either.

But…if I said that I had a more concrete form of a relationship with Aria, they might let me through. We didn't look enough alike for me to say she was my sister, and I definitely was not old enough to be her father. We had different last names, so I couldn't say she was my wife. But wait, wife. There was something there. Maybe I couldn't say she was my wife, but I could say that she was my future wife. I was sure that would happen one day anyway. I even had the ring already. It was worth a shot.

"Officer, please," I said, taking a few deep breaths to calm myself. "My fiancée is on that train. Aria Montgomery. I was supposed to meet her at the end of the line, but I haven't been able to get a hold of her all night, and then the attendant at the train station said that there had been some sort of an accident, and now my phone has died, so I can't try to call her again. Please. Please let me through. I have to see that she's all right."

Wow, I deserved an Oscar for that performance. I almost believed that story myself.

The officer took a deep breath. "This is completely against regulations."

"Please, sir. I just can't wait for hours until you've finished questioning every single person on that train. I'm losing my mind, worrying that something's happened to her."

He sighed. "Wait here. Aria what?"

"Montgomery," I said, taking another shaky breath. "Aria Montgomery."

"Montgomery," he repeated, turning to walk toward another officer who looked like he was holding some sort of clipboard.

He returned a couple of minutes later, but his face gave away nothing. I couldn't tell what he was thinking or anything about whether Aria was all right or not.

"Come with me," he said, gesturing to me to follow him.

We walked past a few cars before he pointed at the door of one of them.

"She's in this car," he told me. "Just tell them that we let you through."

"Thank you, sir," I said, all but flying up the stepstool and into the car.

The officer stationed outside the door held out his hand to stop me.

"They let me through," I said, just as I'd been told.

"All right," he said, stepping aside.

And I was rewarded with the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen in my life. Aria walking towards me. The only evidence of what she had been through tonight was a gauze bandage around one of her wrists.

"Ezra," she breathed. "Hi."

"Hey," I said.

I grabbed her and held her as tight as I could, trying to reassure myself that she really was all right. I was still panicking, still worried that Red Coat might have something more up her sleeve. But Aria was alive, she was in one piece, and she was here in my arms.

"You're okay," I said, trying to calm myself down. "You're okay."

After a minute, she pulled back.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

Of course she would want to know that. And I had nothing. I had been so focused on finding Aria alive that I'd forgotten to come up with a story for when I did. I gave it my best shot.

"I went to the end of the line to meet the train, surprise you," I told her, still talking at a mile a minute, but now it was from relief. "They said that somebody was hurt, there was trouble. So I drove beside the tracks until I found you."

"Yeah, you found me," was all she said as she threw herself back into my arms.

My poor Aria. She was so scared and relieved to be alive, she probably didn't have the wits about her to even think about questioning any part of my story.

"Yeah," I breathed. "Yeah, I found you."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Toby standing close to Aria's friends, but not with them. He gave me a quick glance, nodding slightly. He couldn't give away the fact that we were friends or anything about what had transpired today. But that nod and the look in his eyes said everything he needed to say. He was sorry he couldn't keep a better watch on Aria, he was relieved that she was all right, and we needed to work harder than ever to make sure nothing like this ever happened again.

Then I saw Noel Kahn and Jenna Marshall walk up to the girls. Noel got right in Emily's face.

"Why don't you tell the cops you did it so the rest of us can go home?" he said.

"You know what?" Hanna snapped. "Can it, Noel."

Aria pulled back and turned around so she could watch the scene, but she still clung to my arm. I was glad. I couldn't completely let her go.

"Oh, shut up, Hanna," Jenna said, sounding as annoying as ever. God, I couldn't stand that girl.

"No, you shut up," Emily said.

How articulate. How old were these people again?

Now Noel was in Spencer's face. "Stop trying to pull everybody into every mess you bitches make for yourselves."

Toby gently pulled Noel away from the girls.

"Hey, back off," he said, backing Noel up towards the coffin full of drinks that was in the center of the room.

"Or what?" Noel challenged.

"You don't want to know, Noel," Toby said, starting to lose his temper. This had been a long night for him, and he was at the end of his rope.

Noel took a swing at Toby, but he was drunk and missed by a mile. Toby then took a swing at Noel. Noel tried to duck to avoid getting hit, but he was so drunk that he ended up falling over, grabbing the coffin for support. The coffin came tumbling down off the table it was on. And more than just drinks came out of it when it crashed.

Underneath the sodas and ice, something else was there. It was a black body bag. No one spoke, but the looks of shock on everyone's faces said enough. No one needed to verbalize what we all knew. This was Alison's body.

It took the police a few hours to question all of us about everything that had happened. While we were waiting, I found out that the person who had been killed was Garrett Reynolds. This just added further confusion to my research into Alison's murder, but I filed that away in the back of my mind. I couldn't deal with that right now. I could barely deal with answering the police's questions about what had happened in this train car.

It was about one in the morning when the police finally said that we could all go home. I walked Aria out to my car and got us back on the main road. It took maybe an hour to get back to Rosewood. As we drove down the empty main street, I couldn't stand the thought of her leaving me tonight.

"How mad do you think your dad would be if you stayed at my place tonight?" I asked her.

"Not too mad. I already told him that you drove out to meet me at the train," she said, sounding exhausted. "I should call him to let him know though. He said he was going to wait up for me."

"I just…after what happened tonight, I don't want to let you go. Call me crazy."

Aria smiled. It looked like it was taking up all her energy just to do that. She pulled out her phone and yawned hugely.

"Why don't you let me call him?" I suggested. "I can tell him that you fell asleep on the way back to Rosewood and that I didn't want to wake you, so I just made up the couch."

She yawned again. "Okay. That sounds better."

When we got upstairs, I immediately plugged my phone in. First thing tomorrow, I was going to buy a car charger. What kind of an idiot doesn't have one of those? Seriously. I could have saved myself all of that worry.

Aria went to her drawer and grabbed a pair of sleeper shorts and an old t-shirt. She went into the bathroom to change, and then got straight into bed, falling asleep the second her head hit the pillow. As soon as my phone had enough charge to turn on, I called her father.

"Hello?" Byron answered on the first ring.

"Byron, it's Ezra," I whispered, not wanting to wake Aria.

"What's going on, Ezra? Is Aria all right?"

"Yeah, yeah, she's fine," I assured him. "It just took the police a very long time to finish questioning everyone and Aria fell asleep on the way back to Rosewood. We literally just got back into town. I didn't want to wake her up, so I just brought her back to my apartment and put her on the couch."

Byron sighed, and then yawned. "Thank you for calling, Ezra. I was getting worried."

"Of course. I plan on taking Aria to breakfast tomorrow, and then I'll bring her home."

"That's fine," he said. He sounded like he might be starting to warm to me a bit. "Good night, Ezra."

"Good night, Byron."

After I hung up, I changed out of Toby's suit and into a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. Then I crawled into bed beside Aria. I kissed her softly on the head, and she moaned in her sleep. That moan elicited so many emotions in me that I had to purse my lips to keep back a sob. I was so relieved that she was all right and so happy to have her here in the bed next to me with only a cut on her wrist as evidence of what she had been through tonight.

But I was also still terrified. I was terrified of Red Coat and what else she had in store for us. Tonight had been too close a call. Aria was supposed to die tonight, and would have if her friends hadn't saved her life. I wasn't sure what Red Coat thought she could gain by doing that, since she knew how I felt about Aria. But apparently she'd thought it would be effective, a means to whatever end she had in mind.

I did know one thing for certain. I knew that I couldn't stall anymore. I couldn't skirt around the edges. I had to dive headfirst into this, completely immersing myself in this organization. If I had any hope of figuring out who Red Coat was and stopping her, I had to get her to trust me. That could only come from doing everything she asked of me and going above and beyond. If she wanted information, it was information I would give her. I would find out everything I could about these girls and feed it to her, giving her fuel for her vindictive fire.

Eventually, Red Coat would grow to trust me. And when she finally did, I would expose her and bring her down. I would end this if it was the last thing I ever did.


End file.
